The Biggest and Most Famous Casino Wins in History

For most people, a trip to the casino is a form of entertainment where the dream of a life-changing win is part of the thrill. Though large wins are rare, some lucky individuals have hit jackpots so massive they’ve gone down in history. Here are some of the most famous and largest casino wins in history.

The Megabucks Jackpot: A Software Engineer’s $39.7 Million Win

The record for the biggest-ever slot win was set in Las Vegas in 2003 at the Excalibur. The anonymous winner, a 25-year-old software engineer, was just passing time on the Megabucks slot. After feeding about $100 into the machine, he hit the jackpot of a lifetime. The total prize was a staggering $39.7 million, a sum so large that the casino agreed to pay it out in 25 annual installments of about $1.5 million. The winner chose to remain anonymous, and his story remains the ultimate testament to the incredible, albeit minuscule, chance of hitting it big on a slot machine.

Don Johnson: The Man Who “Broke” Atlantic City’s Blackjack Tables

Sometimes, casino a big win is about more than just a lucky spin. Between 2010 and 2011, a man named Don Johnson went on an unprecedented winning streak, taking three Atlantic City casinos for a combined total of over $15 million playing blackjack.

His secret wasn’t card counting in the traditional sense. As a known high roller, casino (amicireggiavenariareale.com) he was able to negotiate extremely favorable playing conditions for himself. These included a 20% “loss rebate” (where the casino would refund him 20% of his losses if they reached a certain amount), the ability to bet up to $100,000 per hand, and favorable rules like splitting and doubling down on any four cards. By combining these advantageous rules with perfect basic strategy, he was able to shift the mathematical edge slightly in his favor. After his epic winning streak, casinos became much more cautious about the deals they offered high rollers.

The Double Megabucks Winner

The odds of winning a major lottery-style jackpot are astronomical, but winning it twice seems impossible. Yet, casino that is precisely the story of Elmer Sherwin, a veteran of the Second World War. In 1989, at the age of 76, he won a $4.6 million Megabucks jackpot at The Mirage in Las Vegas, just 10 hours after the casino [amicireggiavenariareale.com] opened. He didn’t stop playing, hoping for a second miracle. Incredibly, 16 years later, in 2005, at the age of 92, he did it again. He won a staggering $21.1 million jackpot on another Megabucks machine at the Cannery Casino. Sherwin generously donated much of his second win to charity, including relief efforts for Hurricane Katrina victims.