Article by Gerry Jackson
The Online Pokies industry is one of the fastest growing industries in Australia. Online Pokies (the US equivalent are online slots) consist of three and five reel slots, fixed odds betting terminals (FOTB’s) and quiz machines to name but a few. The online versions invariably mimic some of the offline titles, but increasingly there are more pokie-titles online now than are land-based.
All you need to play online pokies to win real cash, is real money to buy your “stake” – the initial bet. Obviously pokie playing is all about fun and should not be seen as an actual investment, but the amounts you can win off very little outlay are astonishing. For instance, Microgaming, the worlds largest producer of online gaming software, is responsible for the worlds biggest payout slot machine, Mega Moolah which in 2008 paid one lucky winner over six million euros. The astronomical sum of money was won as a progressive jackpot. A progressive jackpot comes about when operators host a certain pokie, which is linked between all of the casino operators on a certain network.
It is very similar to a bingo national game, where all the bingo halls in Australia have one or more games which the whole country plays. All of the money that people have spent buying tickets from all over contributes to the prize pot, which as result is far bigger than a standard bingo game as the are hundreds of bingo halls taking part. With a progressive online pokie, punters are playing in separate online casinos, but the actual pokie is linked. A small percentage of every players stake is put into the progressive jackpot prize-fund which goes up and up until someone wins the jackpot.
One thing to watch out for though is to make sure the whole jackpot is paid in one go. Certain sites pay the jackpot in annual instalments – odd really when the money to fund a progressive jackpot in theory has already been wagered.