The multi-tiered jackpot format has proved so popular on video that is also used on some mechanical reel games, though video remains its main domain.

There are big differences on what you see on the game. On a mechanical-reel, single-jackpot machine, you might see a pay table that looks like this for the top few symbols:

There is one progressive jackpot, and it increases wager by wager. On this machine, you might see it creep up on a lighted display from $1,023.44, and build penny by penny, depending on how much play the game is getting.
On a video slot with a multi-tiered jackpot, you won’t see the full pay table unless you push the “Menu” or “See Pays” button.
However, the progressive awards are there big as life, in the top box of the game you’re playing, on a large plasma display stretching over the tops of several machines, or both.

A top box display might look like this:

MULTI-TIER BEGINNINGS:

Multi-tiered jackpots were introduced by Aristocrat Technologies with its Hyperlink series of linked progressives.

The first Hyperlink game in American casinos was Cash Express. Features of the original Cash Express included:

• Four progressive levels – Mini, Minor, Major and Grand – started at $10, $50, $100 and $1,000.
• A railroad theme for the jackpot round.
• The main bonus event was launched when you landed railroad cars across the video reels.
• When the bonus launched, animation of a railroad train would chug across the plasma screen overhead.
• Each car of the train contained a number of bonus credits, and you would collect credits from several cars.
• You also would build points during the round, and if you collected enough points, you’d win one of the progressives.

HOW TO WIN

Some video slot jackpots work just like the traditional reel-spinning progressives: Line up the jackpot symbols across the reels, and you win. However, most multi- tiered jackpots aren’t so straightforward. There is a division between symbol-driven jackpots and mystery jackpots. Mystery jackpots are related to the mystery bonuses discussed in Chapter 5.4: Mystery Bonuses and Skill-Based Bonuses. They happen without any clue on the reels that they’re coming.

You don’t need to line up winning symbols to win a mystery progressive. That’s something that will be a focus of discussion in Chapter 6.2: Minimum Bettors Can Play for Maximum Jackpots.
On symbol-driven progressives, you do need to line up winning symbols to win a jackpot or to trigger an even to lead to a jackpot.
Under both mystery and symbol-driven bonuses, there often is an extra step before you win a progressive.
Sometimes it involves a spin of a bonus wheel, which can award credits, launch other bonus events or award a progressive.
Sometimes it involves playing a bonus event in which you need to win your way toward a progressive.

One example is Jackpot Party Progressive Deluxe, which has a five-tier progressive marked by stars:
a blue star for a level that starts at $5, green for $15, silver for $50, gold for $200 and red for $10,000.

A bonus event launches when you land “Bonus” symbols on the first and third reels and a gift box symbol on the fifth. That takes you to a free spin bonus. During the free spins, you can win trips to a Jackpot Party gift box grid. On the gift grid, an animated hand points to a box. It opens to reveal either a credit award or star.
If the box contains a star, you advance a progressive level.
It’s all part of the fun, a format designed to keep you involved and entertained. Similar games within a game are used to put you on the progressive trail under both symbol-driven and mystery formats.
Regardless of whether your progressive is symbol-driven or a mystery game, you usually do not have to bet maximum coins to be eligible for the jackpot, as you do on mechanical-reel progressives.

How casinos can allow players who don’t bet the max to play for progressive jackpots is the focus of the next subchapter.

• Progressive jackpots on video slots usually have multiple tiers.
• Progressives can be either symbol-driven or mystery games.
• Winning a progressive jackpot often involves playing a game within a game.

If a machine has 30 paylines and will accept bets of up to 10 coins per line, that’s a 300-coin max bet. Some player bet that max, but many more are betting 30 or 60 coins per spin. That leaves a couple of important problems.

• How do you offer a progressive to players who come nowhere near max bets?
• How do you make players who bet 30 coins and 300 coins eligible for the same jackpot?

Two main solutions have emerged, and you’ll find both in today’s live casinos and online casinos:

• Extra wagers on the progressive jackpot.
• Mystery jackpots.

If the max wager is 10 coins per line, then the total max bet would be $3.15 – $3 on the main game and 15 cents on the progressive. That puts players with vastly different bet sizes on a level field in pursuing the progressive. The max bettor is wagering 10 times as much on the main game as the player betting the minimum per line, but they are contributing the same 15 cents per spin to the progressive pool.

That enables them to play for the same jackpot.

You’re betting 10 times as much per spin as I am, but you’re also adding 10 times as much to the progressive pot and have 10 times as many chances per spin to push the jackpot to the payoff point.

Now we can play for the same jackpot, even though we’re betting vastly different amounts, because you have proportionately more chances to win with your bigger bets. The same principal applies if progressive jackpots are triggered through mystery bonus events that also could bring credits or free spins instead of a jackpot.

Instead of a jackpot amount, imagine a mystery bonus event is triggered when a certain wagering total is reached. In a hypothetical game, let’s say a mystery bonus that could lead to a progressive is triggered when total wagers on the bank of linked machines reaches a total between $250 and $500.

Let’s walk through a few steps: