BetMGM Expands Progressive Jackpots as Bonus Rules Show Limits on Promotional Play

BetMGM has expanded its progressive jackpot offering in Michigan, launching a new optional SideBet Jackpots feature across more than 200 eligible online casino games.

Introduced on August 18, the feature allows players to add a fixed $0.10 side bet to qualifying wagers for a chance at four progressive jackpot tiers: Mini, Minor, Major and Mega. BetMGM said the Mega jackpot launched with a $500,000 starting value and that it plans to expand SideBet Jackpots into additional regulated markets, subject to approval.

The launch puts renewed attention on a question that becomes considerably more complicated when promotional balances are involved: can a deposit bonus actually be used to play for a progressive jackpot?

The answer is not a simple list of eligible bonuses. It is a handful of clauses buried in operator terms, and many of them run the other way.

I reviewed DraftKings Casino's jackpot and education material, BetMGM Casino's New Jersey welcome-offer terms, bet365 Casino's New Jersey new-player terms and 888casino's bonus policy, including archived promotional copies where relevant. The documents show that operators take markedly different approaches to jackpot eligibility, bonus funds and combining promotions.

What follows is what those terms say about jackpot play, why progressive prizes receive special treatment in bonus rules and what a slots player needs to check before opting into an offer.

Real Wagers Feed the Pool, and Two Operators Say So Outright

A progressive prize is not a fixed line on a paytable. It is a balance that grows as people play, and operator terms can specify exactly which wagers contribute to it.

888casino's bonus policy, viewed in a January 2025 archive copy, divides an account into "Available Funds" and "Restricted Funds," the latter being bonus money that has not yet cleared its wagering requirement.

It then draws a clear distinction: jackpot prizes do not increase as a result of wagers made with Restricted Funds. Only wagers involving Available Funds increase the jackpot prizes.

DraftKings uses a similar separation for its own jackpot products.

Its current jackpot guidance says player-contributed jackpots require an optional contribution and that wagers using Casino Credits or Casino Spins are not eligible. Bonus Funds, Locked Funds and Crown Cash also do not contribute to the jackpot or receive opt-in credit.

An archived March 2026 version of DraftKings' jackpot material described the feature as an opt-in side wager in addition to the underlying game wager. At that time, the Michigan terms reviewed for this article listed a $0.20 contribution and odds of 50,000,000 to 1.

Those figures should be understood as applying to that archived version rather than as current universal DraftKings jackpot terms. DraftKings has since updated its jackpot structure and eligibility information.

The distinction matters because it shows how quickly promotional and jackpot conditions can change.

MLive's account of the record jackpot paid from the DraftKings pool described it as being filled by players across multiple online slots.

Put the clauses together and the logic of the fence becomes visible. Progressive pools can be funded through specific real-money contributions, while promotional balances are operator-issued marketing funds. Allowing those balances to participate on identical terms could change both how the pool is funded and the operator's exposure to a very large prize.

That is one reason promotional money and jackpot participation are often treated separately.

BetMGM's new SideBet Jackpots product illustrates the structure particularly clearly. The optional $0.10 SideBet is separate from the underlying casino-game wager, with qualifying SideBets feeding a shared progressive network across eligible games.

One Pool Can Pay Eight Figures Across Many Games

The size of progressive prizes explains why operators treat jackpot eligibility carefully.

Guinness World Records lists the largest online slot payout as €17,879,645, worth $20,062,600 at the time, won by Jon Heywood on October 6, 2015 while playing Mega Moolah on Betway.

The game belonged to the supplier, the site belonged to an operator and the progressive prize was supported by play across the linked network.

In the regulated US market, newer jackpot networks have already produced similarly substantial wins.

On November 26, 2025, a DraftKings customer in Michigan won $22,407,248.55 while playing Huff N' Even More Puff. WXYZ Detroit reported it as the largest US online casino jackpot to that date.

The previous record, $9.28 million, had also been set in Michigan earlier in 2025.

BetMGM put a full year of progressive prizes into perspective in January 2026, reporting $122.1 million in progressive jackpots paid during 2025, including $42.6 million in Michigan, $29.7 million in Pennsylvania and $23.5 million in New Jersey.

Its new SideBet Jackpots product adds another progressive model to that market. More than 200 eligible games can connect to the same four jackpot tiers, with the side-bet contributions increasing the shared pools until a prize is triggered.

These are significant liabilities, which helps explain why operators write detailed rules governing whether promotional funds can participate.

Operators Budget a Bonus on Average Loss, Not on a Jackpot Hit

A deposit match is priced according to what the promotion is expected to cost.

Philip Newall, Dominic Cortis and Jamie Torrance, writing in the UNLV Gaming Research & Review Journal in 2025, describe play-through terms as conditions whose effect can be expressed through the average losses they imply.

They also note that players have historically attempted to exploit bonus arithmetic through techniques commonly described as bonus hunting.

The wagering multiple, eligible-game list, contribution percentages and maximum stakes all help define the financial boundaries of an offer.

A progressive jackpot adds a different type of exposure. The underlying slot can have an ordinary mathematical return while the jackpot pays extremely rarely but at a potentially enormous level.

888casino's archived policy demonstrates that tension particularly clearly.

Winnings from Restricted Funds were subject to specified caps after or before a deposit, but verified progressive jackpot winnings derived from those funds were expressly exempt from those caps.

A following provision then tightened access for other promotional currencies. From July 25, 2024, FreePlay and free spins could no longer be used to place a wager for, or win, a progressive jackpot.

That creates an important distinction: different types of promotional value can receive different treatment even within the same operator's rules.

BetMGM Keeps the Jackpot Category In and Names Specific Titles Out

BetMGM's New Jersey welcome offer, reviewed through an archived copy from late 2025, comes closest to the original question because it did not exclude progressive jackpots as an entire category.

The offer stated that the match was valid on BetMGM Casino Slots and Jackpot Slots, and the wagering section similarly limited qualifying play to those categories.

The exclusions then appeared at game level rather than as a blanket progressive-jackpot prohibition.

Among the excluded titles were progressive games including NetEnt's Mercy of the Gods and Imperial Riches and IGT's Ocean Belles Mega Jackpots.

Other jackpot titles were not named in that particular exclusion list, while BetMGM's January 2026 jackpot reporting included games such as MegaJackpots Wheel of Fortune on Air and MegaJackpots Cash Eruption among its larger 2025 payouts.

That means a "Jackpot Slots" heading alone did not settle the issue. The actual game list did.

BetMGM's August 2026 SideBet launch makes that distinction even more relevant. The operator now has a separate progressive mechanism sitting alongside the underlying eligible casino games, with its own fixed side wager and participation rules.

A player therefore needs to distinguish between whether a base game counts toward a bonus and whether a separate progressive feature attached to that game can be entered using promotional funds.

Those are not necessarily the same question.

bet365 Works From a Closed List of Eligible Games

bet365 Casino's New Jersey new-player terms offer an example of the opposite structure.

Rather than providing a broad casino category and then listing excluded titles, the offer works from a closed list of games that contribute toward the wagering requirement.

The accessible New Jersey version specifies a 100% matched bonus capped at $1,000, with the bonus required to be wagered 20 times on eligible games.

It names 20 qualifying titles, including 88 Fortunes, Cleopatra, Cash Eruption, Maximum Vegas and Ultra Blazing Fire Link.

An archived version reviewed for this article used the same basic closed-list approach.

That structure largely removes the need for a separate progressive-jackpot clause when determining wagering contribution. If a title is not on the qualifying list, play on it does not advance the wagering requirement regardless of whether the game contains a jackpot.

The important distinction is that bet365's publicly accessible New Jersey page currently reflects promotional terms from a different promotional period than the archived version originally reviewed for this article. Promotional dates and conditions are routinely reissued, so the list applying to a particular offer should be checked against the version actually being claimed.

That is a recurring theme across all four operators: archive copies can show how an offer worked at a particular point in time, but they should not be treated as current terms indefinitely.

The Combining Half Fails in All Four Documents

The original question has two parts: whether progressive jackpots can be played with promotional money, and whether multiple bonuses can first be combined.

The second part is considerably more consistent.

The archived BetMGM terms allowed customers to opt into several promotions but specified that wagers could contribute toward the wagering requirement or release restrictions for only one bonus promotion at a time. The active promotion could determine where the wagering progress went.

888casino's policy states that registration promotions and first-deposit promotions cannot be combined with another similar promotion.

The bet365 terms limit applicable customer offers according to their individual promotional conditions rather than creating a pool of stackable bonus balances.

DraftKings' currency guidance similarly distinguishes between DK Dollars, Casino Credits and Casino Bonus Funds and requires the relevant currencies to be used according to their own wagering rules rather than simply combining them into one promotional stake.

The practical result across the documents is similar: none provides a straightforward route for stacking two welcome-style promotional balances and directing the combined value at a progressive jackpot.

What the Four Sets of Terms Show

Terms reviewed	Jackpot play under promotional funds	Games that count	Combining offers
DraftKings Casino	Promotional currencies have restrictions around player-contributed jackpot participation; current guidance says Casino Credits and Casino Spins are ineligible and certain other promotional balances do not contribute	Contribution depends on the specific promotion and game category	Promotional currencies retain separate wagering treatment
BetMGM Casino, New Jersey archived welcome offer	Jackpot Slots were included as a category, but specific jackpot titles appeared in the exclusion list	Slots and Jackpot Slots under the archived offer, subject to title exclusions	Only one promotion could receive wagering progress at a time
bet365 Casino, New Jersey	Eligibility follows a closed list rather than a general jackpot category	20 specifically named games in the reviewed offer; 20x wagering on bonus funds	Governed by the individual offer rather than a stackable bonus balance
888casino Bonus Policy	Restricted-fund wagers did not increase the jackpot pool; progressive winnings could receive separate treatment; FreePlay and free spins were barred from progressive jackpot play from July 2024	Contribution varied by game category under the reviewed policy	First-deposit promotions could not be combined with similar offers

Four documents therefore produce four different fences.

Where progressive jackpot participation is possible, the relevant answer depends on the specific operator, state, promotional currency, jackpot structure and version of the terms.

The launch of products such as BetMGM SideBet Jackpots adds another layer because an underlying casino game and its optional progressive side wager can have separate eligibility conditions.

Where the Jackpot Clause Sits in a US Offer

A US deposit offer is generally a state-specific contract, and four things are worth finding in it.

First is the direction of the game list: does the promotion provide a closed list of eligible titles, as the reviewed bet365 offer does, or a wider category accompanied by specific exclusions, as in the archived BetMGM terms?

Second is the contribution grid, if one exists. Different game types can contribute at different percentages toward the same wagering requirement.

Third is the jackpot clause. It might say that promotional wagers do not grow the progressive pool, that a side-bet feature cannot be entered with bonus funds or that particular jackpot games are excluded.

Fourth is the clause governing multiple promotions and promotional currencies.

The state matters because the same brand can publish different promotions and casino terms in different jurisdictions, while the structure of the offer determines which of these provisions actually apply.

A useful comparison therefore runs by offer type and by state, and LineUps' treatment of the best online casino bonus category follows that approach.

The important point is that the jackpot answer lives in the actual terms of the individual offer, not simply in the marketing label attached to the bonus.

These documents can also change quickly. The BetMGM terms reviewed for this article came from a limited promotional period, while bet365 has since published other New Jersey offer periods and DraftKings' jackpot structure has evolved from the archived version reviewed here.

Readers following the subject may keep both written comparisons and the video side of it within reach, but the underlying game and bonus terms still need to be checked again whenever a new offer is claimed.

Nothing here is an instruction to work around promotional restrictions.

Bonus-abuse, reclaim and eligibility provisions exist precisely because operators expect promotional offers to be used only within their written rules.

The more useful approach is the slower one: read the eligible-game list, identify the jackpot clause, determine which balance funds the wager and check whether another promotion can be active at the same time.

BetMGM's August SideBet launch makes that process particularly timely. Progressive jackpots are continuing to expand across regulated US online casino lobbies, but the existence of a jackpot on a game does not mean every promotional balance can participate in it.

The operator terms decide that question, and those terms can change from one promotion, state and jackpot structure to the next.