Everything You Need to Know About Penny Slot Jackpots

There isn’t a single casino enthusiast who hasn’t dreamt about winning the jackpot. What could be more satisfying than taking a spin on a slot machine to have a $100,000.00, $1 million or even $10 million jackpot triggered that would change your life forever? Not much!

But how do you win the jackpot at a penny slot and how is it possible that winnings can reach such enormous amounts? These are just two of the questions that we will be answering in the following guide. In this, we will also take a look at some of the biggest penny slot winners online, as well as in Vegas, and share useful strategies that you may want to apply when going after the life changing reward. 

This Is a Penny Slot

The term penny slot is used to describe any slot machine that allows you to bet 1 cent per payline. While this may sound obvious, the reality is that more often than not you will be paying 10, 20, 25 or even up to 50 cent per spin. This is because the vast majority of today’s slot machines don’t allow you to change the number of paylines that you would like to play with. So if a penny slot comes with 20 fixed paylines, the minimum bet will be 20 cents.

Modern slots are very different from how slots used to be back in the days. In the late 1990’s, many slot machines only had a single payline. Back then it made sense for a penny slot to actually be played at a minimum stake of 1 cent.

How Do Jackpots in Penny Slots Work and How Big Can Winnings Get?

Penny slots that offer jackpots are not much different from any other slot machines. Depending on how you define the word jackpot you could even say that they’re identical. This is because jackpot is sometimes thrown around as a term to describe a really big win or the maximum win of the slot machine and all slot machines have a maximum win. It would be quite weird if they didn’t, now wouldn’t it?

However, most of the time when someone speaks about a jackpot in a penny slot, they’re referring to a progressive jackpot. In difference to a fixed amount that can be won, this means that the jackpot is constantly growing bigger as players are spinning on the machine. A certain percentage of every stake that is made will simply contribute to the jackpot, which keeps growing until it has been won.

For instance, if 5% of every stake is contributing to the jackpot and you make 100 spins at a stake of $1 each, you would solely increase the jackpot amount by $5. A total of $100 has been spent and 5% of this has been added to the big prize.

Since the jackpot has no upper limit to it, this means that lucky penny slot winners can become filthy rich if they play a slot at the right time and manage to hit the jackpot. Winnings can easily reach several million dollars. Some slot machines even have their jackpots set to a $1 million starting value.

Not All Jackpots Can Pay as Much Though

As jackpots grow bigger and bigger until someone has won them, there are two things that affect their likelihood of reaching a certain amount. The first thing is the probability of hitting the jackpot. The harder it is to hit the jackpot, the more likely it is for the cash prize to grow big.

The second thing that matters is the percentual contribution. If players pay more of their stake towards the jackpot, it’s obviously going to grow quicker and become larger.

To fully understand the concept of penny slot jackpots, you must know that there are three different types of them. More often than not, a single slot machine is making use of at least two of these. This is when the machine has more than one jackpot that can be won. For instance, a “Mega”, “Major” and “Minor” jackpot.

The three different types of penny slot jackpots that exist are known as “Global Jackpots”, “Local Jackpots” and “Stand-Alone Jackpots”. Below, we have briefly described all three of these.

Global Penny Slot Jackpots

These are the major type of jackpots that can pay truly life changing amounts of several million dollars. The jackpot is globally connected to all slots that have the same name or belong to the same series. An example is the popular slot Mega Fortune which can be found at many of the best online casinos in the US. No matter what casino you choose to play this slot at, you will find that the “Mega Jackpot” is identical.

Another example is the Mega Moolah series that consists of several games, such as the original Mega Moolah; Absolootly Mad; Atlantean Treasure and Fortunium Gold. You can pick any of these games and will find that the “Mega Jackpot” is the same.

Local Penny Slot Jackpots

Jackpots that are locally connected with each other are connected within a specific network. What this means in reality is that if a gambling company is running multiple casinos, the local jackpot will be the same at all of these casinos. However, should you visit the same slot machine at another gambling site that isn’t part of the network, the jackpot amount would be different.

Mega Fortune, which we mentioned above, is one of many penny slots that have a local jackpot (actually two) in addition to its global one; the “Major” and “Rapid” jackpot.

While local jackpots always pay much less than global ones, many can still reach substantial amounts of up to $100,000.00 or even more.   

Stand-Alone Penny Slot Jackpots

These types of jackpots are usually those that can pay the least; expect your penny slot winnings to be capped at $20,000 or so. The jackpots aren’t connected to anything at all, except for the specific slot machine that you are playing. So if a penny slot has gotten a stand-alone type of jackpot, the jackpot amount will always be different when you go from one game to another, even though the games are the same.

It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about two identical slots in the same venue (when playing land based) or two identical slots at two online casinos that are both owned by the same company. If the jackpot is stand-alone it is only connected to one slot machine and only spins that are made on that particular slot machine will contribute to the jackpot amount.

How to Hit the Big Win in Penny Slot Machines

Hitting the jackpot in a penny slot is not exactly rocket science. It almost always comes down to being lucky and to win big you will need a ton of luck. However, there are some things that are good to be aware of in terms of how the jackpot win happens.

The one and only crucial thing that comes to mind, is that some slot machines require you to bet a certain amount to be able to trigger the jackpot. It may for instance be that the minimum stake of the slot is 20 cents, but to have chance at the jackpot you would actually be required to bet at least 40. Make sure that you read the paytable of the slot so that you aren’t spinning for too little.

In some penny slots you can also affect the probability of winning the jackpot by betting more or less. It’s not too uncommon to find that the probability is linear to your bet size. This means that a 40 cent bet would have twice the chance of hitting the jackpot compared to a 20 cent bet.

When it comes to actually triggering the jackpot, this is often done during some kind of a bonus round, such as spinning a lucky wheel. This bonus round can either be activated randomly as you play or by hitting a certain set of symbols. There are also penny slots though where the jackpot is simply and instantly won by lining up the right type of symbols on the reels.

Some of The Biggest Jackpot Wins in Penny Slots Listed

Every year there’s a ton of newborn millionaires that have made a fortune from gambling. Some of these lucky people have hit the jackpot and gotten their big wins from penny slot machines. Below we have mentioned a couple of these wins, which include some of the biggest ones that have been won over the internet as well as in the gambling capital of the world, Las Vegas.

Biggest Penny Slot Wins Online

Please note that the big wins that we have listed below are all from different kinds of penny slot machines. We have mentioned the biggest ones from each machine. Had we only mentioned the largest jackpot winnings, Mega Moolah and Mega Fortune would have been the only slot machines on the list as these two games have paid massive amounts a heap of times.

Also note that the winning values below are listed in Euros, which means that if you’re an American the wins are actually much bigger than they already look.

Slot Name	Amount Won	Date	Minimum Stake	Play Game
Mega Moolah	€18.9 million	September, 2018	25 cents	Play Here
Mega Fortune	€17.8 million	January, 2013	25 cents	Play Here
Jackpot Giant	€10.7 million	October, 2018	50 cents	Play Here
Arabian Nights	€8.6 million	November, 2012	10 cents	Play Here
Joker Millions	€7.8 million	November, 2018	25 cents	Play Here
Hall of Gods	€7.8 million	April, 2015	20 cents	Play Here
Mega Fortune Dreams	€5.5 million	July, 2017	20 cents	Play Here

Biggest Penny Slot Wins in Vegas

Being the gambling capital of the world, there’s no doubt that there have been ton of massive jackpot winnings from penny slots in Vegas. However, unfortunately it has been very difficult for us to find information about them.

With that being said, we have managed to scrape together a list of a couple of huge payouts that we’ve found. In this list we have also mentioned where the winnings have occurred. Turns out that Pahrump Nugget is worthy the name of being one of Vegas’s most paying casinos!

Slot Name	Amount Won	Date	Venue
Penny Megabucks(R)	$18.8 million	February, 2017	Pahrump Nugget Casino
Penny Megabucks(R)	$10.7 million	August, 2016	Wynn Las Vegas
Monopoly Millionaire	$1 million	March, 2019	Plaza Hotel & Casino
Unknown	$888,585.00	January, 2020	Atlantis Casino Resort Spa
Wheel of Fortune 4D	$873,111.00	July, 2020	McCarran International Airport

How Often Are Penny Slot Jackpots Won?

How long is a rope? All jokes aside, this will vary widely from one jackpot to another. Not only do all slot machines have different probabilities to their jackpots, but slots are also more or less popular. Even if the probability of hitting the jackpot is the same, the slot that is played more often will obviously have its jackpot won more frequently.

However, if you’re looking to win life changing amounts, we can give you somewhat of an idea. Below we have listed statistics from a couple of penny slot machines and their biggest jackpots. These statistics include how often the big jackpot is won on average; how many times it has been won since the game was released and what the average payout of it has been.

Game Name	Wins Recorded	Average Time to Fall	Average Amount Won	Play Game
Mega Fortune	56	10 weeks, 5 days	€3.9 million	Play Here
Hall of Gods	19	27 weeks, 5 days	€5.5 million	Play Here
Joker Millions	15	18 weeks, 6 days	€2.8 million	Play Here
Mega Moolah	71	8 weeks, 1 day	€5.1 million	Play Here
Mega Fortune Dreams	28	12 weeks, 1 day	€3.7 million	Play Here

Jackpot Strategies to Use in Penny Slots Online

Let’s not beat around the bush. If you want to win a big jackpot from a penny slot you will need all the luck in the world. The life changing jackpot amounts of several million dollars that we all want to get our hands on are super rare, to say the least. As an example, playing with a 25 cent stake in Mega Fortune, the probability of winning the Mega Jackpot is about 1 in 3 million. 

Unfortunately, there’s no strategy in the world that can change the fact that winning the jackpot is extremely hard. However, there are in fact strategies that can improve your chances and make the hunt of the big prize a more profitable one in terms of your long term return of investment. Let’s have a look!

Maximize Your Returns by Playing When the Jackpot Is High

In difference to normal slots online, penny slots that offer a progressive jackpot have no fixed RTP (Return to Player). In other words, the amount that you are expected to win in the long run will vary.

This is because RTP is based on the probability of winning and the amount that can be won. In normal slot machines both of these values are static. In progressive jackpot slots, on the other hand, the amount that can be won is varying as the jackpot grows bigger and bigger until it’s eventually reset.

As you can imagine, this means that the higher the jackpot amount is, the higher the RTP of the slot, thus the more profitable it becomes. There are even occurrences when a jackpot has reached such a high amount that the slot has become favorable to play with an RTP above 100%.

If you want to maximize your returns chasing the big win in a penny slot machine, a valid strategy is to only play when the jackpot is really high. People have then spent their money to boost the value of the slot, which is value that you are able to take part of.

Choose the Casino That Has the Highest Penny Slot Jackpots

As previously explained in the guide, there are three different types of penny slot jackpots. While the global one is the one that you would like to trigger, this is often accompanied by one or two local jackpots that could give your bankroll a nice boost. 

No matter the casino you choose to play at, the global jackpot will be the same. The local ones will, however, vary in size. This means that by choosing the right casino to chase the big jackpot win at, you can affect the expected value of your session, similarly to what we just said above.

The bigger the local jackpot is, the higher the RTP. There’s no reason to chase a million dollar jackpot with a side jackpot of $10,000 if you could chase the same million dollar jackpot with a side jackpot of $100,000. After all, the local jackpots are much easier to trigger than the global ones.

Bet More to Have a Higher Chance of Winning the Jackpot

We’ve already covered this in the article and as we said the probability of winning the jackpot is often linear to your bet size. We mentioned early that the big penny slot jackpot in Mega Fortune is won once in 3 million spins when playing at a stake of 25 cents. Should you, on the other hand, bet the maximum amount in the slot (which is $200), the probability would be 1 in about 15,000. Now that’s a huge difference and a number that isn’t that far away.

The strategy of betting more may of course be a very costly one depending on your budget, but it does work very well in combination with the other two. If the jackpot is high, and perhaps even high enough to yield a long term positive return, you may want go all in for a real chance of actually winning it.

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