The latest mega-trend in the world of online gambling is online progressive slots. The epitome of online slots gambling, these slots games can have enormous payouts that could literally change your life. Here is a brief guide to the world of progressive slot machines.

The original casino slot machines were based on a simple formula. If you won, a certain amount of money came rolling out of the machine with lots of bells and whistles and fanfare. The amount you could win was usually posted next to the machines. The slot machines that had smaller jackpots were usually cheaper to play. If you only wanted to bet nickels, you would play the machine with a $50 jackpot. If you wanted the opportunity to win more, you could play a slot machine with a $100 or even a $1,000 jackpot. But of course, you would have to bet more each time to play these machines.

Then someone came up with a fantastic idea: a slot machine with no maximum jackpot. The jackpot would start at a minimum, say $100. Every time someone played and did not win, the jackpot would get higher. The current jackpot amount would be displayed prominently. As soon as the number started getting into the thousands, people abandoned other machines to "go progressive." Some progressive slot machines soon were paying out jackpots in the thousands.

Linked Progressive Slot Machines

The next step in the evolution of progressive gambling was the introduction of linked slot machines with a progressive jackpot. A casino would set aside, say, ten slot machines. All these machines would be linked together using fiber optic cable. Now, whenever anyone played any of the linked machines and did not win, the jackpot for the whole group got higher. With ten times as many people feeding the slots jackpot, the amount skyrocketed!

Finally, along comes the internet to give us the ultimate progressive jackpot. A single online slots game can be played by millions of people in different online casinos around the world. With a progressive slot machine game, all these millions of slots players in all these online casinos are feeding an ever-increasing jackpot. When someone wins, that player wins all the marbles. Look online and you will see some unbelievably huge progressive jackpots. Every once in a while the lucky winner of one of these progressive slots wins a huge sum.

Please make sure you read the rules of the particular online slot machine. Some require you to bet the maximum amount to be eligible for the progressive jackpot. If you bet less, you can still win a nice sum. But still, it would be a shame to find that you have won ten thousand dollars when you could have won a million, all because you bet one dollar instead of three! If you are going to play a progressive slot machine, you might as well make sure you can win the progressive jackpot if you hit the winning combination. A million-dollar progressive jackpot can change your life in an instant. There is no bigger thrill in online casino gambling.