The biggest slot machine wins in history  

It’s no surprise that most of the biggest slot machine wins are in Las Vegas; it is, after all, the global home of gambling. But how might the growth of online casino gaming change that?  

Online gaming is on a massive upward trajectory, with the industry yielding some £6.49 billion from April 2022 to March 2023, according to the Statista Research Department results.  

In the same period, the number of new player accounts online in Britain hit over 36 million, placing the UK firmly in Europe’s top five gambling markets.  

These statistics are so significant that the UK government felt the need to introduce new £5 maximum bet laws for online slots (£2 for 18 to 24-year-olds) last year under the guise of protecting players (affordability checks rule), which is due to take effect in early 2025.  

So, how will this change the slots industry going forward? And how do you hit that big win if there’s a capped max win? 

Progressive jackpots in slot games 

Before we look at the biggest slot machine wins, it’s important to understand that in each case, the win was triggered by a progressive jackpot machine. 

Progressive jackpots are prizes that can be triggered by playing on any of a group of networked slot machines. Each spin feeds a percentage of the wager into the jackpot total, increasing its value progressively until someone wins the lot.  

This means that even though your machine might have a capped win potential of, say, 10,000 times your bet, the jackpot amount will keep rising, uncapped, until it’s won.  

Some of the most popular progressive jackpots in the UK are the Mega Moolah and Wowpot! jackpots hosted by Games Global. These jackpots are high RTP slots that have hit some staggering sizes in the past and lead us nicely onto the first and biggest payout in our list.  

To make comparisons easier, we have listed all the jackpot values in USD, however, both online wins were awarded in euros as they were triggered by European players. 

Biggest slot win of all time: Wowpot! Wheel of Wishes – $42 million 

The biggest slot machine win to date was triggered at the end of 2023 by one lucky winner on Alchemy Gaming’s WowPot! Wheel of Wishes slot game. A record-breaking win of $42 million equivalent was won by an anonymous player, who hit the jackpot at Sportsbet.io by placing bets in the USDT cryptocurrency.  

This win broke the previous record for the biggest slot machine win online, which was held by its sister Games Global progressive jackpot, Mega Moolah. These jackpot networks are long-established brands that have been popular among UK players since being launched in 2006.  

The Mega Moolah and WowPot! progressive jackpot networks have awarded many fantastic wins to online slots players over the years and continue to be as popular today as they were when first introduced.  

Megabucks jackpot slot wins in Las Vegas casinos 

The next three biggest slot machine wins all happened in Las Vegas, when players hit the Megabucks progressive jackpot from game developer IGT at various land-based casinos: 

• Excalibur Casino, Las Vegas – $39.7 Million – 2003 

• Desert Inn, Las Vegas – $34.9 Million – 2000 

• Palace Station Casino, Las Vegas – $27.5 Million – 1998 

In all three instances listed, the jackpot was triggered by a casual player who placed a wager under $100, resulting in a massive return on the gamble.  

Megabucks was IGT’s first-ever wide-area progressive jackpot network, launched in 1986. The game has enjoyed fantastic success over the years and is still widely available in land-based casinos across the country.  

The launch of the Megabucks brand paved the way for an entirely new way of presenting jackpots to players, who, for the first time in history, could participate in real money online games offering life-altering sums of money.  

The Megabucks slot remains one of the most popular in Vegas casinos despite its age, likely due to the attention it receives for—until recently—holding the top three spots in jackpot history. 

Bringing up the rear: Mega Moolah by Games Global – £25 million 

Bookending the top five online slot wins is a return to Games Global, this time to its iconic Mega Moolah progressive jackpot, which, in 2015, awarded one lucky British serviceman the equivalent of 25 million US dollars from a single bet of just 25p. A record-breaking win at the time it happened.  

Although this particular jackpot drop happened when Microgaming was still managing the jackpot network, it demonstrates the strength these iconic progressive network brands wield today and the reason for their ongoing popularity among UK players. 

This result is another example of how the government’s capping of the maximum bet permitted on online slot machines should have little effect on hitting these jackpot prizes, as all players have equal chances of triggering the jackpot, regardless of the wager size.  

Jackpot slot machine wins: an online revolution 

There is a big gap between the WowPot! win last year, and the previous biggest slot machine win on the Megabucks machine in 2003. Some 20+ years have passed, and in this time, the gaming industry has undergone some pretty significant changes.  

What is most notable is the massive shift towards online gaming, not just in the UK but globally. This shift has added many more horses to the race, on both provider and player sides, which will undoubtedly shape the future of slot machine jackpot wins.  

In today’s modern online casinos, you can expect to find a range of different jackpot games, some with ever-increasing progressive prizes like those mentioned above, while others feature must-win prizes that might not reach the same dizzying heights of progressives, still give players a chance to bag a jackpot greater than the max win of the base game.  

Popular progressive jackpots available in the UK include Dream Drop from Relax Gaming, Blueprint Gaming’s Jackpot King, and the latest Games Global jackpot, King Millions, which offers a starting seed of $2,000,000. 

Pragmatic Play also offers the hugely popular Drops & Wins promotion, which allows players at casinos signed up to the promotion to win a rake of different random prizes triggered from inside participating games. The prizes available are not restricted to the capped wins of the individual title and can be far more generous.  

The future of jackpot slots  

Only time will tell what the future holds for this exciting industry, but one thing is for sure: it doesn’t appear as though progressive jackpots are going anywhere any time soon and are growing in popularity. Indeed, the best chance you will have in the UK of making the top five list of the biggest slot wins in the future is to focus on playing these exciting games.  

We predict that as more players switch to getting their slot game kicks at online casinos, those top slot machine wins in Las Vegas will soon be replaced by their younger, more modern online counterparts.  

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