Last week we talked about progressive jackpots on the slots. Are they worth it, who plays them, all that good stuff. This week I’ll break down the three main kinds of progressive slot machines so you can get a better idea of what’s offered, and whether it’s really worth your hard-earned nickels and quarters to pump them into one of these bright, noisy machines.

First, the stand-along progressive slot machine. As it sounds, this one is the Lone Ranger of progressive slot machines. It doesn’t link to a community of progressive machines. And as is the case, it doesn’t share a fixed jackpot that any player on multiple machines all might have a shot at. The stand-alone takes a percentage of the cash put in and rations off a bit each time to built its own jackpot. Players can see this jackpot grow on a meter, usually placed on the frotn of the machine somewhere. Since you’re the only one vying for the jackpot, you might think you have a better chance of winning one of the top prizes. Those top rewards, by the way, vary depending on how the machine distributes the input coins. Typically, the stand-alone jackpot is significant lower than the community jackpot machines. That doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a bad play, but it’s definitely worth noting. They’re the working class of the slot world.

Second, as you can guess, is the community-linked progressive jackpots (also known as In-House progressive jackpots). These machines are casino-owned and casino-controlled. They are linked together, and they can all be housed in a single casino or spread across multiple casinos – all of which share the same single top jackpot prize. These jackpots can climb into the tens of thousands of dollars at times. They’re the middle class of the slot world.

Finally, we get to the big daddies (sorry Bioshock fans, talking about something else here). The Wide Area progressive jackpots. The machines that slot regulars dream about. OK, enough unnecessary hype. These slots are linked together not only within a single casino ownership, but often by many different casinos. They’re also not operated by any specific casino – instead controlled by independent contractors; sometimes slot machine manufacturers themselves. As you’d expect, with huge jackpots comes ridiculously small odds of hitting the big one. The percentage of what you win against how much is actually pumped in is also less than community linked slots because of the cost of operation. Obviously, the Hollywood of slots.

So there you have it. The different slots, broken down into an easy-to-identify-with human class system. Actually kinda depressing when you look at it that way. Poor stand-alone slots.