Progressive Jackpot

I have submitted this a couple of times for a "Question of the Day" but it hasn't been addressed for whatever reason.
A lot of slot machines will show progressives jackpots that are in the range of $500,000 give or take and then the slot machine will disappear from the casino or casinos. I am not referring to mega bucks or even the smaller progressive that are in the hundreds of dollars. What happens to that big progressive when the machine is no longer in the casino? Did the manufacturer keep the money? The casino? They split it some how? Under Nevada law do they have to put it into another progressive? If somebody won it, I'm sure it would be advertised. Just curious because the progressive increased, granted it was slowly, due to the players and then?????

Yes. The casino caanot keep the money.

Casinos can't keep the money because by law it belongs to the players. Usually they transfer it to another machine or give it away through a drawing. Transferring to another machine can produce some incredible opportunities if you're lucky enough to stumble upon it. One time I found an over $8,000 royal flush progressive on a 5 coin quarter machine. That's over 8 times the normal amount, so I'm pretty sure it must have come from some other retired progressive.

I just have this feeling that the manufacturer is the one who keeps the money and may put it into another game. Those progressives that start in the 6 figure range on video slots are the ones I'm referring to.

Here is an excerpt I cut and pasted from the QOD archives (2009) about what they do with progressive amounts when they discontinue a machine, and it seems that it applies to a progressive of any amount big or small, who owns the machines, whether owned by IGT or the casino, etc. Sorry if it still doesn't satisfy. You can do the search and maybe find something better. Go to today's QOD, click "Archives", in the text box type words that apply to your question. I just typed one word, "progressive" and got a list of past QODs that had something to do with progressive jackpots, including the QOD that included not only how they transferred a discontinued penny Megabucks progressive, but also a story about a smaller VP progressive that was divided up among other VP machines in the same joint. As I said, it may not be the answer you are looking for.

"Many of you were confused when the jackpot suddenly jumped from $19 million to $31 million in late March; we received numerous QoD submissions about it. Here’s what happened.

IGT wanted to retire its (video) Penny Megabucks. But a game with a live progressive jackpot can’t be discontinued without the money that it’s accumulated being disbursed in some manner. Often in cases like this, a casino will add the retired jackpot to an ongoing progressive, and this is what IGT got regulator permission to do. Adding the money from the penny game to the dollar progressive resulted in the instant jump to $31 million, and that grew to $33 million before it was hit."

The MGM had numerous "lions share' machines but only one for the last few years. As stated, the couldn't take it down until it hit. The, last year, they gave the machine to the NH man who hit it. I'm aware of attendants marking hit-jackpot-machines as 'out of order' as the staff may or may not always get info on whether a given machine stays in service after it hits. Good luck!

Thanks to all. So it looks like that have to get regulatory permission and then put it into another machine. That's better than them or the casino keeping the money. Yes I remember the Lion's share game that finally hit.