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Microgaming has expanded their progressive jackpot portfolio with the WowPot in 2020, with a minimum prize of €2 million for the top jackpot. Their second game in this series has been released recently with Book of Atem, but there’s more to this jackpot in terms of industry influence than first meets the eye.
The WowPot Jackpot Gains Steam
Microgaming has been the undisputed king of the progressive jackpot for quite a while. They’ve broken every record that there is to break, most of which have come by way of their Mega Moolah pooled network jackpots, but they’ve decided to step forward to something new for the future.
This comes by way of their WowPot Jackpot network, which increases the top prize to double the minimum available through Mega Moolah’s top jackpot.
There’s a lot going on here, so we’re going to jump right into it because this is an important story that slot fans will really want to pay attention to as it develops over time.
Two Game Releases in 2020
Back in January of this year, we reported on the release of the Wheel of Wishes video slot. IT was a progressive with some bonus features that offered a €2 million minimum for its progressive jackpot, what was generally considered at the time to be the largest available online in terms of seed value. Many people, ourselves included, thought that this might be a one-off from Microgaming, but that has proven to not be the case.
We know this because they recently released their second game tied into the same progressive. This is the Book of Atem video slot, and it has the same €2 million seed for its progressive. It’s worth noting that the gameplay style is similar as well with 10 paylines and some basic bonus features used in each of these two titles.
This is important because they have tied these two games together with what they’re calling the WowPot, which is this progressive jackpot with the €2 million minimum seed.
What This Means for Players
This news puts players in an interesting position because it means that Microgaming is looking to develop an entire network jackpot separate from their Mega Moolah series, which has been their main progressive series for a very long time. This is a very gutsy move because they’re building a new progressive brand from the ground up, but it’s easy to see how this is the best move for the future.
What this means for players, and the reasons why this second release is so important, is that Microgaming is treating this like they would if they wanted it to be a major asset in the future. There aren’t really any other software providers with a top jackpot in a slot that’s this large in terms of the guaranteed value each time you win it, so they’re blazing trails in that sense. However, it also means that it’s something they’re obviously taking seriously and that will almost certainly see new releases for in the future.
In fact, we’d be surprised if we didn’t see at least one more new release for the WowPot by the end of the year.
Microgaming Continues to Dominate
The progressive space is pretty much owned by Microgaming at this point. Other providers like Net Entertainment have a non-trivial portion of the market share, but Microgaming has paid out more in their progressive network than most other software providers combined have with theirs, so there’s not really any comparison when it comes to pure volume.
To see that they’re starting to build up an even bigger progressive network with a minimum prize worth double the minimum prize guaranteed with the Mega Moolah games is very impressive and shows that they aren’t going to rest on their laurels. Instead, they’re going to make everyone else play catch-up, and in the meantime, it’s ultimately the players who win big with an increased game selection.