For instance - if I got a manager bonus of 30 bucks, the max cashout would be $300 - and if I hit a RJ for $3000, where does the other $2700 go? Back into the casino's pockets, right? Why wouldn't it go back into the RJ pot for someone else to try to win?
Imagine getting a $10 manager bonus and winning a $15K RJ - you get a hundred bucks and the casino gets $14,900 - and everyone else who was trying to win that jackpot gets nada. Doesn't really seem fair does it?
Not that I ever WON a random jackpot, but still....
When I won a random jackpot in a similar situation, the remaining amount went to the casino, and I asked the same question. A casino manager explained it to me in the below thread, I try to summarize it:
https://www.casinomeister.com/forums/threads/rtg-random-jackpot-question.14974/
There's a fixed jackpot drop, let's say 10 cents from a $1 bet, that goes to the pool. In a casino where most people play with large bonuses, it might happen that 6 cents from the 10 cents drop are bonus cents. So when the jackpot grows to $10.000, it also might happen that $6.000 was contributed as bonus, and 4.000 was contributed as deposit. As he explained, hence the maximum cashout rule and that's why it goes to the casino.
I accepted that statement at the time when I won, but now I only partially agree with that reasoning, because:
Let's assume that a player deposits 200$, and gets 300$ bonus. The max cashout is 20xdeposit, so 4000$. If he hits an RJ of $4000, he will be paid full. If he hits an RJ of 10000$, he will only get the same 4000$. No matter how she/he and the other players contributed.
On the other hand if a player who never used a bonus wins, he will get paid, no matter that the jp was boosted by bonus money, and that's fair for the player, but might cause problems for the casino, this is an indirect consequence of offering bonuses.
So what I accept now from his answer is that there might be some cashout restrictions for a bonus, especially for a free offer. What I don't accept is the straightforward approach to the max cashout rule for bonuses.
I think a better approach would be - assuming that they would use to same reasoning to explain the max cashout in case of RJs - to restrict the max cashout rule for RJs only (of course I know that RJs are not the only reason to use the max cashout rule, nevertheless), and make the RJ max payout proportional to the deposit/bonus ratio. Additonally to make the free credit promotions credible, define a minimum payout for the RJs, let's say 1000$ in case it is won during bonus play. Now if a bonus player hits the jackpot, he would receive $1000 or an amount which is equal to jackpot*(deposit/(bonus+deposit)), whichever is higher. Sounds complicated, I agree, but probably fair for bonus and non-bonus players on the long run.
Finally I think that the one jackpot per casino is a unique feature of RTG RJs. So it's basically up to an RTG casino to decide what to do with the remaining jackpot. The casino might take the challenge, and put back it to the pool, or might decide to offer large bonuses, but restrict the cashout, I can accept it as a marketing strategy, although I do not like it. But that's why you should always check the T&C.