With any form of gambling, there is no harm in dreaming big as long as we keep in mind that in the long run, the house always wins. Jackpot pokies take this principle to the extreme. First, we need to be clear on what they are. Most pokies – or slot machines as they are otherwise known – have a fixed jackpot. This is won by matching the highest value symbols with the highest possible stake. The prize might be fixed at something like 1,000 times the stake. That means a $10,000 win if you made a $10 wager.
About jackpot pokies
Put simply, jackpot pokies represent the highest paying online slots in Australia. As well as their regular prize payouts, jackpot pokies also include a progressive jackpot. This is a shared prize pot and every time someone, somewhere plays the game, a percentage of their stake goes into the pot. Progressive jackpots can spend weeks or months growing before finally paying out, and there is no way of predicting when they will do so.
It can lead to plenty of public attention when a particular game is running “hot,” meaning the progressive jackpot is looking big and must surely burst at any moment. Over the years, some such games have gone into eight figures before finally paying out.
Is it worth playing jackpot pokies?
That might sound like the world’s most stupid question when you read about prizes in the tens of millions. Jackpot slots give you a shot at winning a life-changing sum of money, that’s understood. But before we all empty our wallets into the nearest Mega Moolah game, let’s just stop and think a moment.
The big lotteries such as Euromillions or the US Powerball also pay out jackpots of that magnitude to a handful of lucky winners every year. Are we better off buying a ticket for one of those instead?
The answer is a resounding “maybe.” The chances of winning are astronomically long in either case. The downside to jackpot pokies is that to even be in with what is at least a 50 million to one shot, you will probably have to stump up more than the €2.50 price of a Euromillions ticket or the $2 you would spend on the Powerball.
Jackpot pokies – strategy tips
Every jackpot pokie has its own rules and setup, but a common factor shared by most is that you must wager the maximum stake to even be in with a chance of winning. With Mega Moolah, the game that paid out that huge sum in 2015, that means wagering $6.25 per spin.
When you look at it that way, you can see why the question of whether jackpot pokies are really worth it is a valid one. Perhaps you’d be better off buying three Powerball tickets instead and you’d still have a quarter to feed into a penny slot!
Yet however lousy the odds, we are but human, and the chance of just maybe winning a fortune is hard to turn down. A strategy that many casino regulars adopt is this. They spend the bulk of their time playing regular low-stakes games, and when they have a winning night, they end the evening by trying a few spins on a jackpot slot game – after all, the stake is bonus money, and you never know what might happen.
