Jackpot King interview: Blueprint Gaming’s Daniel Kalinowski
By Lucy Wynne
Progressive jackpots are the dream way for anyone to win big, but how do you do that? We spoke with Blueprint Gaming’s affiliate manager to find out more.
Jackpots are renowned for rewarding lucky players life-changing amounts of money and the Jackpot King mechanism is particularly famous for giving away eye-watering sums of money, on low bet sizes, so let’s find out a bit more!
There are two main mechanisms behind jackpot slots, fixed and progressive. Fixed means the amount you can win from the jackpot will never increase and progressive means the jackpot will continue to increase until somebody wins.
The jackpots are usually triggered randomly, but sometimes there may be a minimum bet required to be entered into the jackpot pool.
About Jackpot King
Jackpot King (JPK) is a particular progressive jackpot model created by casino developer tycoons, Blueprint Gaming. The mechanism was brought to the UK market back in 2016 and it has created many winners within the UK since.
A percentage of every spin on a JPK slot game is added to the progressive jackpot amount. This means that you could have tens of thousands of players all adding to the jackpot; culminating millions in total.
You play JPK slots the same way you would play any other slot, by placing your bet and hitting the spin button. After the jackpot has been won, the prize pot will reset to its base amount and will continue to grow again until it is hit.
Biggest win on a Jackpot King UK slot
Win: £5.4m
Stake: £1.40 per spin
Slot: King Kong Cashpots Jackpot King
Operator: Betfred
When it was won: January, 2023
Winner: Michael Clark
How does the Jackpot King mechanism work?
To find out more about the all admired Jackpot King slots, FIRST spoke with the affiliate and social media manager of Blueprint Gaming, Daniel Kalinowski.
“The progressive pot system is linked across multiple games with the Jackpot King system, so the pool is shared. What that means is that every bet placed by the players on these games contributes towards the pot prizes.
We have three different progressive jackpots that are increased by these bets – Royal, Regal and Jackpot King, with the latter being the highest.
The players can trigger this feature on any spin, regardless of their bet size. To do this, you must land five crown symbols on your reel, which will unlock the feature. We have seen a few Jackpot King prizes being won over the last few years from bets that were lower than £1!
Once the Jackpot King bonus is triggered, players enter a mode where they will be collecting crowns to move up the prize ladder, where the main prize is the ‘Wheel King’ feature. This is where the player will spin for the last time to see whether they will win any of the jackpots."
Why did Blueprint Gaming decide to introduce the Jackpot King mechanism?
"We believed that the Jackpot King mechanism would introduce an exciting opportunity for big wins to our products and, over the years, these games proved to be very successful in certain markets.
Our studio always tries to innovate new game mechanics to increase player engagement while providing good value for money in a secure environment. The progressive jackpots are designed to be won, to ensure regular payouts to our players. Thus, while we look at the average bets placed on our games and the jackpots that have been won, we believe we have achieved our goal!"
How many Jackpot King slots are there currently available in the UK?
"There are currently over 60 games with the Jackpot King system in the UK. However, this number is always growing as we create many games each year. We have also introduced a new jackpot system called ‘Rapid Fire Jackpots’ recently which adds to our jackpot-oriented family of games while holding its own ground."
How often is the Jackpot King triggered?
"This depends on the volume of games hosted on our operator’s platforms and their own configurations. Like I said earlier, all Jackpot King games will share the same pool on the platform you are playing at, and the jackpots are designed to be won before they reach a certain point, so this all depends on the number of games and players on the site."
What is the Jackpot King slot with the highest RTP?
"I believe this slot would be Fortunes of Ra, with its RTP set to 96.49% (plus its Jackpot King contribution)."
What is your favourite Jackpot King slot and why?
"I think Wish Upon A Jackpot was one of those games that caught my attention when I started working at Blueprint Gaming. It is quite an old slot, but still popular among its players.
As a fan of fantasy and fairy tales, I thought this game’s setting was interesting, with its magical forest, Puss in Boots and the Fairy Godmother all being portrayed nicely with vibrant graphics.
The game also offers other interesting features, such as the ‘fairy Godmother bonus’, fairy tale bonus, as well as free spins and scatters. It’s a nice slot package with good potential for big wins and jackpots. If you look at it from a critical point of view and compare it to our recent games you will see how important Wish Upon A Jackpot was for our studio."