If it’s the size of the prize you care about, there’s not much that can beat progressive jackpot slots. But most of these games accumulate a separate jackpot for each site.
That’s about to change for some slots titles from Light & Wonder (L&W) at NJ online casinos. The company announced its new line of products today at the Global Gaming Expo (GGE).
Jackpot Festival, as it’s called, will start with the popular 88 Fortunes in January 2024. L&W says it will add more Jackpot Festival games shortly after that, following the same Asian culture theme as 88 Fortunes.
When it Comes to Jackpots, the More the Merrier
Jackpot Festival will link the progressive jackpots for 88 Fortunes across “multiple” participating sites. It’s a concept borrowed from the retail casino industry, where such machines are called WAPs. (These aren’t the WAPs Cardi B sings about, though; it’s short for wide-area progressives.)
The advantage of connecting multiple casinos – or, in this case, online gambling sites – is that bigger jackpots can build more quickly. Think about Power Ball compared to state lotteries.
Although common at brick-and-mortar casinos, WAPs are more of a novelty online. While you’re waiting for Jackpot Festival to arrive, the other option in the Garden State is IGT’s Megajackpots, which includes games like Cleopatra and Siberian Storm.
It’s not clear exactly which NJ online casinos will participate. However, 88 Fortunes is such a popular title it’s available almost everywhere, including all the biggest sites like DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM, Golden Nugget and BetRivers. We can probably expect that most, if not all, of them will opt in. L&W says it will expand Jackpot Festival to other states following its New Jersey launch.
Jackpot Festival is only one of several new product lines announced by L&W at GGE. In addition to some retail innovations, it teased the upcoming launch of its US live dealer studios. These have been on the way since the company acquired Authentic Gaming in November 2021. It will become the fourth live dealer brand in the US, after Evolution, Ezugi (now an Evolution subsidiary) and Playtech.
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