WowPot slot is no longer available to play. Why is this?

Is there something a rumbling in the bowels of Microgaming with one of its longest serving games? Are we about to see one game axed from Microgaming's portfolio, or could we see a brand new slot based on a former classic?

No one but Microgaming and a little known studio called Alchemy Gaming knows for sure - because they are busy creating something called the Wheel of Wishes slot featuring a "WowPot" jackpot.

For those of you that don't know, the WowPot progressive is one of the smaller progressive jackpot slots that Microgaming have operated as part of their progressive network. This exclusive range of progressive games boasts a number of top ranked slots, such as Mega Moolah and Mega Vault Millionaire, as well as a number of other titles, of which WowPot was one.

WowPot slot was a different game to the Mega Moolah-linked games in particular as it offered a much smaller progressive jackpot prize, usually counted in thousands or tens of thousands. However, it was cheap to play and easy to follow, which is why it still had a fair number of players up until October 2019.

What happened in October 2019?

Well since the 18^th October 2019, we have not had a winner on the WowPot slot and indeed, at e.g. the Casino Rewards casinos, you cannot play the game and the progressive jackpot value reads a flat zero.

So it seems WowPot is no more and that is a shame, as this little retrospective about the slot game will show.

What was the WowPot slot?

The first thing to note is that WowPot wasn't actually just one slot, but it was two. Essentially you had the same game, just in 3-reel and 5-reel versions of the game. The cost of the maximum bet (which you needed to play in order to stand a chance at the progressive jackpot) remained the same at 1.50, and your chances of triggering the progressive jackpot prize was also the same regardless of whether you played the 3-reel or 5-reel version.

However, the base game in the 5-reel version offered slightly better value prizes than the 3-reel version and as such, this was the version of WowPot that most players tended to play.

In both slots, the key to landing the progressive prize was landing a complete line of Wild symbols on the final pay line on the reels. Land those five Wilds on any of the other pay line and you would trigger the base game jackpot, however on that final line, it would trigger the progressive jackpot prize.

Wowpot jackpot triggers

We actually have some data about the typical Wowpot jackpot prizes awarded since 2016 and what is notable is that since 2016, the jackpot was triggered a total of 27 times. On average that is around seven times a year, so it is fair to say that the Wowpot progressive jackpot was regularly won.

The top prize paid out over that period was a prize of 17,615.93, which was won on the 25^th July 2017. Given that the prize pool was seeded at 4,000 coins, the lowest payout over that period actually came just a few months before that win in July on 26^th April 2017 when one player landed a prize of 4026.45.

Barely five days after that win, the second-lowest cash win of that period was paid out as another player landed a 4074.07 prize.

2019 had seen us land six winners of the jackpot prize, two in January, one in May, one in July and two in October and four of those prizes had all been over the 10,000 threshold, including three jackpots in a row from 30^th May 2019 to the 5^th October 2019.

Biggest WowPot wins since 2016

1. 17,615.93 - 25^th July 2017
2. 14,422.07 - 3^rd September 2017
3. 13,777.32 - 30^th May 2019
4. 12,233.99 - 5^th October 2019
5. 12,043.30 - 19^th January 2019
6. 11,568.23 - 23^rd July 2019
7. 10,0382.27 - 3^rd November 2017
8. 9,224.12 - 29^th January 2018
9. 9,201.94 - 8^th March 2018
10. 8,173.96 - 5^th September 2019

Why have Microgaming halted the WowPot slot?

Given that the jackpot had been triggered on average around seven times a year over the last four years, this seems to indicate that the WowPot slot did have its followers, so why would Microgaming pull the plug on the game?

Well, one possible thing to consider is those two wins we mentioned in April and May 2017 of just over 4,000 each. Given the seed value of the game, it does seem to indicate that the Wowpot jackpot was growing rather slowly, which is indicative of not as many people playing the game. Other progressives can add thousands to their value every day (Mega Moolah can see tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands added daily when it is at its most popular), so maybe Wowpot wasn't as bit a hit with players as Microgaming had hoped.

However, despite that it still had a following and it is rare for a casino provider to pull a game when it still has players wanting to play it. Which makes me think that there could well be plans afoot for something to be done with this particular progressive jackpot.

What next for the Wowpot slot?

What is going to happen with the Wowpot slot? It's a good question, but I don't believe Microgaming have just shelved the game. My feeling is that they could be doing one of two things.

One option is that they could be giving the Wowpot slot a makeover and perhaps making some tweaks to the game to make it more appealing to players. While this is possible, I do feel it is the least likely of the two as I don't think making minor alterations to a game that had the smallest of all Microgaming progressive jackpots, is going to make it massively more appealing to the typical progressive slot player.

What we do know is that games like Mega Vault Millionaire and Mega Moolah, with their low-cost spins (from 0.25 per spin) and their massive jackpot prizes are massively more popular, and it would stretch the boundaries of credulity to assume Microgaming have not spotted this.

So, my gut feeling is that the WowPot slot has been withdrawn for the time being for Microgaming to rework it as a new slot and my gut feeling is that the new slot will not be called WowPot, but it may feature the new and improved Wowpot jackpot engine.

Now the exciting thing here is how much could that jackpot be? As we have already seen, there is less demand for lower value progressive jackpot prizes at Microgaming, but there is high and increasing demand for big money slot games.

Mega Vault Millionaire's release, given that it is linked to the Mega Moolah progressive prize fund, was a smash hit success and I think this may have prodded Microgaming into making a big decision. My gut feeling is that when we see the revamped WowPot slot, or its successor, we could see a jackpot game with another massive jackpot prize.

How much will that be? Well, it would probably have to be something more than any of the other progressive seeded prizes to make an instant hit. How about a jackpot prize seeded at 2 MILLION or more? That would certainly grab player attention.

Of course, this is all speculation at the moment, but experience has taught us that Microgaming rarely pull a slot out of circulation without a very good reason and without a clear strategy to offer something better in its place.

So will we see a new mega-sized progressive slot in 2020? I guess we will have to wait and see, but I'm willing to bet that Microgaming have something up their sleeve for customers in what will be a big progressive year for the company and players.