Australia Guide To Online Casino Jackpots

If we compare the average payout of a slot or table game to a safe but dull family sedan, the jackpot equivalent would be a volatile but exciting sports car. In fairness, a sedan will get you from point A to B. However, it’s unlikely to deliver a souped-up Lamborghini or Ferrari’s upside, intensity or coolness.

But what is a casino jackpot, how do they work, and how do you win at one? Well, you’ll have to keep reading our jackpot guide for Aussies to find out.

So what are casino jackpot games anyways?

When Australians hear ‘casino jackpot games,’ it inevitably refers to the ones with game-changing payout potential. Most casino jackpot games are found in slots, awarded in one of a few creative ways:

A winning payline consisting of an identical symbol
Randomly on any spin
A grid covered in a matching symbol
An unlocked feature, like a jackpot wheel or collection bonus

Also, remember that some casino games have more than one jackpot. However, the ‘Mega’ prize will always stand out.

Table game jackpots often come in the shape of side bets within games like casino poker, blackjack, roulette, and live casino variants. In addition, some specialty games, like bingo, scratch cards, and keno, offer jackpots.

Fixed casino jackpot games

Although there’s no standard definition of the minimum size necessary to constitute a jackpot game, a good starting point might be a fixed size of about 5,000x total bet.

Fixed jackpot sizes can get much higher, with some climbing to 10,000x, 20,000x, 50,000x total bet, or more! Ultimately, the dollar value of a jackpot depends on the total stake.

Progressive casino jackpot games

Until now, we’ve discussed fixed jackpots where the game pre-defines the maximum prize. However, as we see in progressive jackpot games, this need not be the case since the mechanics behind them work a little differently.

Theoretically, the maximum payout of a progressive online jackpot is infinite. The prize pool value starts at a pre-defined level. Then, it grows incrementally by a tiny percent on every stake, resetting after a win.

AUSTRALIA GUIDE TO ONLINE CASINO JACKPOTS

In some games, the odds of winning a progressive jackpot improve with bet size. It may be necessary to use max stakes with others. However, it’s best to read a game’s instructions to know the precise requirements for winning a jackpot. As you’ll find out next, we can categorise progressive jackpot prizes into network or local.

Pooled progressive jackpots

A pooled progressive jackpot is the bigger of the two types. This is because the max payout grows by a percentage of stakes from players across multiple operators over a broad player network. These operators might include online and land-based casinos in numerous countries, including Australia.

For this reason, some of the most popular games can reach hundreds of thousands or even millions of Australian dollars. This also implies that the jackpot size of a particular pooled progressive slot, table or live game won’t depend on where you play. Therefore, a pooled progressive jackpot in Syndicate Casino will have the same value everywhere else.

Microgaming is one of the most prominent network progressive jackpot providers responsible for the Mega Moolah series of online pokies. They share four progressive jackpots, including the Major, Minor and Mini. However, it’s the Mega jackpot that’s worth millions of dollars. Since its release in 2006, Mega Moolah has paid over 2 billion to players, including Australians.

Local progressive jackpots

A local progressive jackpot is the smaller of the two types. As previously mentioned, progressive jackpots grow by a small percentage diverted from every player’s stake. However, with local progressive jackpots, the stakes originate from all players at a single operator, like Syndicate.

This implies that at any given moment, the size of a particular slot or table game’s local progressive jackpot can be larger at one operator than another for different reasons:

More players at an operator may be playing the particular game
The date of the last jackpot win is older
The percentage of every stake diverted to the prize pool may be higher

One of the most popular local progressive jackpot providers is NetEnt, the geniuses behind the famous ancient Greek mythology-themed Divine Fortune. It offers three progressive prizes, including the Minor, Major, and Mega jackpots. Since its release date in 2017, the ‘Mega’ jackpot has awarded multiple payouts of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Jackpot games timed to drop

The downside of a typical progressive jackpot is that no one knows when it will drop (payout), which can sometimes take weeks or months. Providers like Red Tiger Gaming introduced shared progressive jackpots among select slots guaranteed to fall by a specific date (like hourly or daily) and time. The countdown timer before the prize must drop is visible to players, adding to the excitement.

The primary benefit to players is a better chance of winning, provided they happen to be playing qualifying slots when it happens.

House edge and return to player (RTP)

Understand that the outcome of casino game rounds at Australian brick-and-mortar and online casinos are certified as random by independent third-party testing labs. This ensures there has been no tampering with physical equipment or software.

However, while the outcome is random, the advantage always lies with the casino. Otherwise, many casinos would have likely lost money and closed. This advantage is called the house edge, expressed as a percentage, which differs dramatically depending on the jackpot game.

For example, a blackjack side bet jackpot may have a house edge of 7.5%. From players’ perspectives, this implies a theoretical return to player (RTP) of 92.5% (100% -7.5%). The RTP is calculated over millions of spins, quantifying the average return per round.

Therefore, an RTP of 92.5% implies that a player would theoretically win back 92.5 cents out of every $1 wagered if they played over a vast number of rounds. Although still theoretical, a player should always consider games with a higher RTP/lower house edge for the best chance of unlocking a jackpot.

Since the RTP of table game jackpots tend to be much lower than slots, they’re probably best avoided.

Hit frequency and odds

Probability is an important concept in all casino games, including jackpots. Therefore, we’ll start with an elementary coin toss example to illustrate how it works. The odds (probability) of landing consecutive heads will decrease with the number of tosses:

1x: 50% [½]
2x: 25% [½ x ½ =1/4]
3x: 12.5% [½ x ½ x ½ =1/8]
4x: 6.25% [½ x ½ x ½ x ½ =1/16]
5x: 3.125% [½ x ½ x ½ x ½ x ½ =1/32]

Let’s apply the odds of winning to a simple 3-reel fruit slot machine with 5 symbols (star, cherries, watermelon, orange, and plum) and 1 payline. Assume each symbol has an equal chance of landing and has a payout of 10x bet. The chance of landing a star on the payline would be as follows:

1x star: 20% [⅕ ]
2x stars: 4% [⅕ x ⅕ =1/25]
3x stars: 0.8% [⅕ x ⅕ x ⅕ =1/125]

In reality, the odds of each outcome are not the same because of something called hit frequency. It means the odds of each possible outcome are determined by a value set, which can change the hit frequency of each symbol.

For example, previously, the chance of landing any symbol on a payline was 1/5. This time, let’s change the hit frequency of each symbol so the payout is larger for ones with a lower hit frequency:

star: 5% [1/20] – 100x bet jackpot with 3 on a payline
cherries: 10% [2/20] – 50x bet payout with 3 on a payline
watermelon: 20% [4/20] – 25x bet payout with 3 on a payline
orange: 25% [5/20] – 10x bet payout with 3 on a payline
plum 40%: [8/20] – 5x bet payout with 3 on a payline

This time, the odds of landing a star on a payline look like the following:

1x star on payline: 5% [1/20]
2x stars on payline: 0.25% [1/20 x 1/20 = 1/400]
3x stars on payline: 0.0125% [1/20 x 1/20 x 1/20 = 1/8000]

As you can see, the odds of winning the 100x bet jackpot with a payline of 3 stars are now much less than in the previous example. This concept of hit rate applies to all casino games and explains why jackpots are exceedingly challenging to crack.

Final thoughts on jackpot games

There shouldn’t be a single opinion on the best jackpot games or how to get the jackpot you want. That’s why we advise our players from Australia to play the ones that excite them most.

Remember that all jackpot games have very high volatility meaning they have a very high risk of draining your deposit balance. Therefore, stick to a budget and have a blast!