UK Enjoys Slots Success
Gamblers in the UK have apparently garnered the attentions of Lady Luck, after three British players scooped a combined £1.8m playing an online casino game with a progressive jackpot.
Progressive jackpots, which are often applied to games of slots or blackjack, among others, increase in value every time a particular game is played. The effect is particularly pronounced when several machines are linked to the same jackpot, as the respective income of each individual machine is added to the final prize. Naturally, the more times that a game is played without paying out, the greater the jackpot.
The same system is replicated in online casino slots and table games. However, as the bets of thousands of players contribute to progressive jackpots in the digital world, the ultimate bounty can be an astonishing sum. For example, a UK player won £1.5m playing progressive slots during June 2011. The life-changing win, accrued on a 5-reel, 9 payline slots game, is said to have prompted a surge in the popularity of the classic ‘fruit machine’.
In subsequent weeks, an Essex woman claimed a progressive slots jackpot worth £100,000. The winner, named Julie, was ‘convinced’ that the casino had ‘made a mistake’.
Online slots, like roulette, has the advantage of being an easy game to pick up and play. The game requires only a minor monetary investment, limiting the financial ‘risk’ of gambling, and a player’s winnings often equal or better the initial expense. However, increase in the number of people wanting to play slot games in the UK appears to be rooted in a news story from earlier this year, in which a British woman landed a progressive jackpot win of almost £240,000 (£236,532) playing the casino game.
‘It’s easy to see why everybody is going slots-crazy this 2011’, explained online news source, Casino Times.