For players worldwide, playing slot machines is not only super fun, but it is also much more. Every time we press the spin button, this little action triggers the mechanism of the machine, as well as our adrenaline and the fantasy that, if luck is by our side, in seconds (the time each spin lasts), we could become millionaires. Emotionally, it is a very intense game! That fantasy has a huge power, and one of the reasons is that the winners have confirmed its viability.
It can take years for a slot game to collect one of those life-changing jackpots and for a winner to make the fantasy come true. Hitting such a prize does not happen daily, but it has happened. Today, we will review the biggest slot wins in history. We will not go chronologically. The order of our winnings review is based on the jackpot amount.
Megabucks $20,519,025 jackpot! (2006)
On June 05, 2006, it was the turn for a 64-year-old retiree in Las Vegas to experience a big win. The lady winner, who preferred to keep her anonymity, picked Megabucks to play at the Cannery Casino. She bet USD 12 and pulled the handle four times until she landed the lucky combination on the reels. The cleaning lady was the first to notice the enormous prize she had won. Owning one of the biggest slot wins ever should be awesome and shocking!
The payment of her mortgage and a brand-new car were the priorities for the winner. We hope she enjoyed that prize as hell!
Mega Moolah £13,213,838.68 jackpot! (2015)
On October 06, 2015, a fortunate British soldier, Jon Heywood, won a massive Mega Moolah jackpot of £13,213,838.68. Translated to USD (United-States dollar) back then, it was approximately an outstanding sum of $20.8 million.
From Crewe in Cheshire, Jon Heywood was 26 years old when he played at Betway. He tried his luck on the Mega Moolah online slot machine. His bet was 25p. And he won a life-changing prize of $20.8 million. His lucky story and the Mega Moolah -a progressive jackpot slot developed by Microgaming- immediately draw the attention of slot players and media. Such an amount directly entered into the biggest slot wins!
Megabucks $21,147,947.31 jackpot! (2005)
It is one of our favorite biggest slot wins. What makes it amazing is that the winner was indeed a lucky man. On September 15, 2005, Elmer Sherwin was 92 years old. He was visiting Las Vegas (Nevada) when he decided to play the Megabucks slot at the Cannery Casino, where he won a staggering $21,147,947.31 jackpot!
But this was not the first giant jackpot for Sherwin. Sixteen years before, in 1989, precisely the opening day of the Mirage Casino, the Second World War veteran was there with his wife. Sherwin did not have a budget to play, so she sponsored him with $20 for some spins on the Megabucks slot. That investment returned to him into a huge $4.65 million jackpot.
Fortune smiled twice on this man, and that doesn’t happen every day or to everyone. He was the first player to win the jackpot twice in his life. The case totally got a place in the history of the biggest slot machine wins.
Megabucks $21,346,952.22 jackpot! (1999)
On June 01, 1999, the famous Caesars Palace in Las Vegas would host one of the biggest slot wins ever. This time, the luck blinked an eye to a man. Many details about him remain unknown. It is enough to say he was a business consultant, a 49-year-old from Illinois, and the lucky one who hit an outstanding $21,346,952.22 jackpot!
Some said that his motivation to play was to get money to pay off his credit card debts. He picked the Megabucks slot machine. He defined his budget to play, 10 USD, pressed the spin button, the reels got activated, and the lucky slot’s symbols aligned in the progressive jackpot so that he could be an absolute winner!
Megabucks $22,618,156.67 jackpot! (2002)
On May 17, 2002, Johanna Heundl, a 74-year-old retired printer, was looking for a place to have breakfast, so she stopped at Bally’s Las Vegas. When she saw the Megabucks slot machine, she got interested in its $3,000 progressive reward. She spun the slot and hit a $22,618,156.67 jackpot instead!
The woman from Covina, California, revealed she was in Las Vegas to celebrate her birthday. While playing that morning, she lost her initial investment of $100, but she did not quit, so she loaded a second $100 bill. After spending $170, luck blinked her an eye, and boom, she hit a massive jackpot precisely on her birthday. What a lucky woman! How not to include her story in the biggest slot wins!
NetEnt’s Mega Fortune slot €17,861,800 jackpot! (2013)
In 2013, a Finnish player whose identity and win details were kept anonymous was playing online at PAF.com when he tried NetEnt’s Mega Fortune slot. He bet 25 cents and hit an enormous €17,861,800 jackpot. By then, he had already been playing on this gambling platform for two or three years. Some testimonials point out he was skeptical about his win of such an amount, mainly because this slot machine was known for its USD 1 million (minimum) jackpot. It did not take long for him to verify that he was the winner of around $24 million at that time. Then he started crying and laughing simultaneously! A big and pleasant surprise for any slot player, don’t you think so? An enormous jackpot worth to register in the list of the biggest slot machine wins!
Megabucks $27,582,539.48 jackpot! (1998)
On November 15, 1998, at the Palace Station Resort, one of the biggest slot wins occurred in Las Vegas, Nevada. A retired flight attendant, local resident, and regular client of the resort’s restaurants tried her chances on the Megabucks slot machine. She was with her husband, waiting for a table. Her original plan was to spend 100 USD on the slot machine. She finally invested $300 and hit an astonishing $27,582,539.48 jackpot.
The 67-year-old winner was an exceptional case of good luck. Slot machine enthusiast for a long time, she previously hit a $680,000 jackpot precisely on the day her husband retired. She was playing at the same casino but on a different slot machine, the Wheel of Fortune.
She kept her identity and her husband’s anonymous, but her monster win and the Megabucks progressive jackpot became extremely popular among slot players.
Megabucks $34.9 million jackpot! (2000)
On January 26, 2000, at the Desert Inn Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, the life of Cynthia Jay Brennan changed forever. From waitress, she became a multimillionaire in a lucky spin of a slot machine. After a long shift, she tried her luck with $27 ($3 a spin) on the Megabucks slot machine. After some tries, luck intervened, aligning the symbols and awarding her an astounding prize of $34,959,458.56!
The enormous win got everybody’s attention. Life seemed to be fantastic for the 37-year-old lady. She married her boyfriend and had a gorgeous honeymoon in Fiji. Only a few weeks later, on March 11, she was traveling to Las Vegas with her elder sister when a drunk driver smashed her car. Cynthia’s sister died, and she got paralyzed from the waist down. The fantastic life she could get through that lucky shot on the slot machine turned so soon into tragedy. Still, her incredible luck legitimately got her a place on the records for the biggest slot wins ever.
Megabucks $39.7 million jackpot! (2003)
On March 21, 2003, a 25-year-old software engineer from Los Angeles took a chance on a slot machine called Megabucks. The venue where everything happened was the Excalibur Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. The young man started with just USD100, and some testimonials pointed out that he wasn’t aware he would play on a progressive jackpot machine! He spun the slot -and his entire life- becoming, in just seconds, a new millionaire. And guess what? He won the mammoth prize of USD 39,713,982.25 on his very first spin! That is how he got a golden place on the biggest slot machine wins.
The protagonist of this astonishing win opted to remain anonymous. We barely know anything about him, but his incredible luck in hitting the progressive jackpot on his first spin makes this win unforgettable and inspiring.
This remarkable win captured global attention, earning a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for the largest slot machine jackpot ever. But after two decades, someone finally broke this record. It is time to jump to the top one of the biggest slot wins.
Wheel of Wishes €38.4 million jackpot! (2023)
On December 20, 2023, the online slot Wheel of Wishes -developed by Gaming Global and Alchemy Gaming- made a player’s biggest wish come true! He or she -we will never know- was playing at Sportbet.io. The player decided to wager $50 of Tether cryptocurrency, then pressed the spin button and hit the astonishing jackpot of €38,461,200.95. It means close to $42 million! A staggering prize that now leads the biggest slot machine wins in history.
We can imagine the happiness of the winner, who, for obvious reasons, decided to remain anonymous. The only testimony shared by the casino points out that, at the beginning, the player thought it was too good to be true. Minutes later, he or she was screaming and celebrating non-stop. Of course, such a prize perfectly illustrates what a life-changing means. What would you do with those millions in your bank account? It was a wise decision to remain anonymous. There is a famous saying, “Money attracts money,” but experience shows it attracts sudden “friends,” ex-partners, alleged heirs, and problems instead. Anyway, congrats to the biggest winner so far!
Conclusion
When playing slots, most of the time, players lose. After a fun slot session, they must go home with а big smile but empty hands. So, the next day, they must work to keep paying the bills, as regular people do. But knowing these biggest slot machine wins in history ignites hope. You can be seconds, one spin away from becoming a millionaire. The possibilities of hitting such a massive jackpot are very narrow but not zero.
Besides, let’s consider that we focused on mammoth prizes, but you also can win smaller and still good prizes. Here is some fresh evidence!
- On February 05, 2024, a slot player won USD 1,520,988.15 in New Jersey while playing Wealthy Monkey at DraftKings Casino.
- On May 15, 2024, a lucky player hit a jackpot of USD 1,504,527.85 in New Jersey, too. He was playing Atomic Meltdown at DraftKings.
- On June 06, 2024, BetMGM announced a $1 million jackpot winner in Southfield, Michigan. He bet 40 cents while playing Bison Fury, an exclusive game available on BetMGM Casino.
Anyway, you could be the next winner now or tomorrow. Who knows! We wish you luck! We want to be obliged by your win to add your name and story to this biggest slot wins ever article very soon. And guys, if we win a mammoth jackpot, we won’t tell you, but you will see signs!