1. A gaming system including a universal jackpot controller, comprising: a plurality of gaming machines which present wager-based games; a casino management system comprising at least one casino management system server which communicates with said plurality of gaming machines; a universal jackpot controller comprising a processor, a jackpot module comprising machine-readable code executable by said processor to implement one or more jackpots, and universal communication interface which permits communications in a plurality of protocols, said universal jackpot controller communicating directly with said casino management server via said universal communication interface in communications of a first protocol and communicating directly with said gaming machines via said universal communication interface in communications of a plurality of second protocols without the need for an intermediate gaming machine translator.