Not everyone is equally happy in the game, and not everyone leaves non GamStop casinos with a big win in their pocket. However, it is not impossible to become a millionaire overnight when you are in the casinos not on GamStop. There are people who went before you and who have won really huge prizes.
That’s why we’ve listed the nine biggest hits in the history of Las Vegas casinos for you.
Gamble, Gamble & More Gamble
Las Vegas is of course, the gambler’s Valhalla. You can, of course, take a gamble in many more places in the world. Even nowadays, you can easily go to an online casino. But nowhere is it as big and famous as in Sin City. The city is located in the middle of the Nevada desert, and it may be dry as a bone, in the casinos, the booze flows freely, and you can gamble anywhere and on anything. During the day, the city looks ordinary but at night it turns into a true gambling paradise where you can find all types of gamblers, even players of non GamStop casinos. You can visit shows and enjoy a world that feels like a kind of fantasy. Sometimes you imagine yourself on another planet.
Who Have Won the Biggest Prizes in History?
Anyway, in Las Vegas, very large prizes have been won by various gamblers over the years. We have selected six.
Number 9: $680,000
At number nine, we find an elderly lady who had just retired when she visited Las Vegas. She managed to win a whopping $680,000 at the Palace Station Hotel. Do you think she left it at that? No, because a few months later, she also won the top prize of $27 million with the Megabucks jackpot, a progressive jackpot that is linked to many slots in all kinds of casinos. How lucky, we think.
Number 8: $8.9 Million
The second-highest earner in the list is also a senior. Amy Nishimura, who hails from Hawaii, was on vacation in Las Vegas. She bets a total of $100 to eventually make $8.9 million by hitting the jackpot on a slot machine. She played for about three hours on the same machine at the Freemont Hotel for this win.
Number 7: $11 Million
The $11 million winner was also on vacation in Las Vegas. John Tippin was the lucky winner of the Megabucks jackpot there. The money has not only brought him luck because he wrote a book about it after his win. Winning the huge amount of money at once resulted in the necessary pitfalls for him.
He became especially suspicious of other people and led a life of seclusion because he feared that people were only after his money instead of actually being interested in him.
Number 6: $4.6 Million
Some guys have all the luck. That certainly applies to an old war veteran during his visit to the casino. He played the slot machine for about ten straight hours and managed to win $4.6 million, another Megabucks jackpot. This happened to Elmer Sherwin when he was 76 years old in the famous Mirage hotel. With the money he won, he traveled around the world to repeat his stunt 16 years later, but really double and straight.
He managed to win a whopping $21 million the second time around with the same jackpot prize. Sherwin was a true benefactor as he donated most of his winnings to Hurricane Katrina victims to recover after the disaster.
Number 5: $27.58 Million
In November 1998, a retired Las Vegas flight attendant vowed not to bet more than $100 on slot machines. She went over her personal limit anyway and spent just over $300 on the night in question.
That turned out to be very positive for her because she managed to win the jackpot of $27,580,879.60 at the Palace Station Casino.
Number 4: $22.62 Million
In May 2002, then 74-year-old Johanna Heundl from California decided to score breakfast at Bally’s Hotel and Casino. On the way to the breakfast buffet, the Megabucks slots first caught her eye.
She took a seat behind the slot and placed a bet. At first, she did not even realize that she had played the right icons in a row, but a little later, reality set in.
Johanna had won $22,621,229.74 on an empty stomach. Unfortunately, it is not known what exactly she scored for breakfast after that, but it was probably not the budget breakfast…
Number 3: $20 & $40 Million
When Kerry Packer, an Australian billionaire, visited Las Vegas in 1997, he was already very rich. And he only got richer by winning between $20 and $40 million. He did this with Baccarat and Blackjack. He also later lost another $28 million in a casino in London, but hey, that didn’t hurt the rich guy because he still had more than enough left over, of course.
Number 2: $39.7 Million
The last and greatest prize winner in the list is certainly a man from Los Angeles who wishes to remain anonymous. Wanting to kill time, he bet some money on a basketball game at the Excalibur Casino in Las Vegas. Luck was on his side as he won a single prize of $39.7 million, the highest amount ever paid out. To prevent him from wasting the money in a short time, he wisely chose to have about $1.5 million paid out every year so that he can live well on it and really not have to worry about anything in the coming period. In his case, money definitely buys happiness.
Number 1: $34.9 Million
It’s like a movie story: a waitress from Las Vegas wins a fortune, but then something terrible happens. It happened to Cynthia Jay-Brennan on January 26, 2000, at the Desert Inn casino.
The then 37-year-old waitress put 27 dollars into the Megabucks slot machine and won a jackpot of no less than 34.9 million dollars.
Only six weeks later, disaster struck. While driving with her sister, Cynthia was hit by a drunk driver. Her sister died, and Cynthia herself became multiply paralyzed.