Updated September, 2001
Yikes! On July 11, 2001, progressives changed greatly! Used to be the beginning prizebucks pool for free play started at 300 and for pay-for play at 1500, and prizes were awarded to the top 10 scores for the day. As of 7/11/2001, the prize pools are no longer seeded, and now the top 20 players share the total prize pool.
This page will give information about "Progressives". Whether you play games in free play mode, or in pay to play mode, you are eligible to win additional "bonus" prizebucks by getting one of the top 20 scores in a particular game for the specified progressive bonus time period.
I am presenting this page in "FAQ" format, with each of the sections below in the form of a question, answered by the text that follows the question.
By the way, it is my feeling that prizegames.com offering of these progressive bonuses is an awesome idea! It gives game players something to shoot for and gives the site a bit of a sense of competition. I hope that all players will have an opportunity to win bonus prizebucks through the progressives! (NICE JOB, prizegames.com!)
The information presented here is accurate as of September 2001, but is subject to change as per prizegames.com policy decisions (again, I am not an employee of prizegames.com; I only report here what I observe happening on the site).
Basically, progressives are like "bonus" prizebucks that you can earn by performing well in a particular game. If you play a game and get one of the top 20 highest scores for that game for the current progressive time period (one day), your name will be added to a "Top 20 Progressive" list, and at the end of the specified time period, your account will be credited with these additional bonus prizebucks (provided that you don't get knocked off the top 20 list by another player before the end of the progressive bonus period!).
Important: there is nothing additional you need to do to play for the progressive bonus prizebucks; whenever you play, each game you play is automatically included as eligible for bonus prizebucks.
Whether you play in free play mode, or in pay-to-play mode, every game you play makes you eligible to get your name in the top 20 progressive lists.
As far as I know, there is no way to specify that you do NOT want to be included in the Top 20 bonus prizebucks contests.
You can view the current top scores for each game for both free play and pay to play mode by clicking on the "Progressive Leaders" link on prizegames.com. Click the appropriate tab to view the current leaders for free play or pay to play.
Prior to mid-December, 2000, all progressive bonuses were played on a weekly basis (that is, the progressive top 10 list was reset once per week). Around mid-December, the site has changed this so that currently some games still have weekly progressives, while other progressives are reset on a daily basis. The beginning prizebuck pools for the progressives are smaller for the daily progressives and are about 1/7 the size of the weekly progressive games. As of mid-January 2001, all progressives are now daily (see table below).
Why did prizegames.com change from weekly to daily progressives? I think this change is a really good idea. I don't know the exact reason for this change, but I'd guess that it is primarily to give more players a chance to make the Top 10 list and earn bonus prizebucks. Also, this might be a way for the site to increase the chances that their players will play with credits instead of for free (and thus might purchase more credits online). Follow this link for more information on buying credits.
(NOTE: As of July 11, 2001, all progressive jackpots are now daily, and there are no starting seed pools).
As the time period (daily, weekly) for the progressive bonus prizebucks elapses, the number of prizebucks available in the pool of total prizebucks increases. How does this work?
I'm not entirely certain of the precise method for prizebucks increasing, other than to say that I think the total bonus pool will increase by 1 prizebuck for every X number of games that are played for that game (free play and pay to play are considered separately here).
For example, it might be the case that for every 2 games played of a particular pay-to-play game like Cubix, the pay-to-play progressive bonus pool might increase by 1 prizebuck (it might be more or less than 2 games). Similarly, for every, say 5 games played of a particular free-play game, the free-play progressive bonus pool might also increase by 1 prizebuck (again, it might be 1 prizebuck per more or less than 5 games played).
Yes, this is a bit complicated but I hope you get the idea.
At the end of the playing period, bonus prizebucks for each game that has just ended will be distributed among the players that have scored the top 20 highest scores for that game during the progressive period. Each of the highest scorers receives a certain percentage of the total prizebucks available.
These payout percentages were different prior to September, 2000, and they changed again in July, 2001. While it doesn't really matter now what previous percentages were, I'm including them simply for historical reasons in the following table:
| Top 10/20 Rank | Percentage of Pool Won (Prior to September 2000) |
Percentage of Pool Won (Sept. 2000 thru July, 2001) |
Percentage of Pool Won (Current) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | 35.4% | 25% | 13.2% |
| 2nd | 12.3% | 15% | 11% |
| 3rd | 10.7% | 13% | 10% |
| 4th | 9.2% | 11% | 9% |
| 5th | 7.9% | 10% | 8% |
| 6th | 6.7% | 8% | 7% |
| 7th | 5.5% | 6% | 6% |
| 8th | 4.7% | 5% | 5% |
| 9th | 4.3% | 4% | 4% |
| 10th | 3.3% | 3% | 4% |
| 11th | - | - | 4% |
| 12th | - | - | 3% |
| 13th | - | - | 3% |
| 14th | - | - | 3% |
| 15th | - | - | 2% |
| 16th | - | - | 2% |
| 17th | - | - | 2% |
| 18th | - | - | 2% |
| 19th | - | - | 1% |
| 20th | - | - | 0.8% |
The following graph displays the data from Table 1:
Why did the percentages change? I don't know for sure, but it is my feeling that the percentages were definitely skewed too much toward the top few places prior to September 2000, and I think the change is a good idea and that it distributes the bonus prizebucks more evenly.
Table 1 and the graph above should be pretty self-explanatory. The only item I would point out here is that under the current percentages, there is a larger percentage jump between 6th place and 5th place than there is between 5th place and 4th place (indicating that it is more worthwhile to try to place at least in 5th place instead of 6th place, but it is less important to try to improve your standing from 5th place merely up to 4th place).
The bonus prizebucks will simply be added to your account during the time period between the end of one progressive period and the beginning of the next one. If you happen to be online and playing during this time, you might be able to see the prizebucks being added to your account while you play!
You might also receive an email from prizegames.com indicating that you have won some bonus prizebucks, but I have found that such email isn't guaranteed, and often comes several days after the prizebucks have actually been added to your account. The best way to check to see when and how many bonus prizebucks have been added to your account is to watch your name on the top 20 lists, and possibly keep track of your total prizebuck earnings to date.
Yes! If one of your major goals is to go for the progressive bonus prizebucks, you will want to be aware that any games played between 3 PM and approximately 3:15 PM (Pacific time) will NOT be eligible for progressive bonus prizebucks for the games where the progressives are reset daily, because the site uses this time to reset them. So if you get a really great score in a game during this daily 15-to-30-minute time period, it might not get on the top 20 progressive list!