The traditional bricks and mortar casino offers customers more than chance of an opportunity to win vast sums of money. It’s a place where people from all walks of life can mingle in a glamourous atmosphere populated with unique sights and sounds.
And the best part of all is that at any given moment, anyone in the room could win a vast, life-changing sum of money! But who are these fortunate few, and what games were they playing?
If hustling and bluffing is your thing how about Poker? Perhaps you’ll just get plain lucky on the slots. Or how about taking the roulette wheel for a spin, getting into baccarat or a few blackjack games.
All may be fun to play but if you want to win big, what are the best games to play? The good news is that these days you don’t need to head over to Vegas to get a slice of casino action.
All the games you can play in real life can be played anywhere on your smartphone. That’s all well and good but surely life-changing jackpots can only be found in real-life casinos?
Well, let’s take a look at some of the biggest casino wins in history and see how that works out. We’ll kick off with Charles De Ville Wells, better known as the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo Casino.
- $1,000,000
That’s $33,000,000 in today’s money, though it’s not known if De Ville won the money fairly as he was a known fraudster. But over five days, De Ville cleaned the Casino out of money.
One of his most spectacular wins was on the roulette table, where he won 23 times out of 30 spins. De Ville claimed he won through a combination of study and courage, though the authorities have their doubts.
De Ville died aged 81 years, impoverished after spending most of his later years in jail. Whether he won the money by foul means or fair remains a mystery, but he’s become somewhat of a legend.
- $8,900,000
The Fremont Casino in Las Vegas saw an unusual win when Amy Nishimura sat down one afternoon to hit the slots. Nishimura firmly believed that if she talked to the machines while playing, she’d win big.
Okay, it may seem unlikely that a conversation with a slot machine would result in a jackpot win. But she got nearly almost nine million bucks, so good luck to her.
- $12,000,000
Postman John Tippin couldn’t believe he’d won big at the Gold Coast Casino in Las Vegas, but, unfortunately, he had. You see, Tippin found it hard to cope with the win. He isolated himself from friends and family while racing through his winnings.
In the end, he spent the lot, but instead of fading into the desert, Tippin wrote about his experience. His book, ‘I did it, my life after megabucks’ is still in print today.
- $5,000,000/$21,000,000
Don’t be confused by two seemingly random numbers separated by a slash. These are the two amounts won by Edwin Sherwin sixteen years apart!
If you thought lightning doesn’t strike twice, well it did for Sherwin, first on a family trip through Vegas where he won £5,000,000. Then, 16 years later, he decided to hit the slots in Vegas once more and won the $12,000,000 jackpot!
- $30,000,000
Speaking of good luck, this one almost seems to be too good to be true. Kerry Packer was already an Australian billionaire when he scored $40,000,000 at the famous MGM in Vegas playing blackjack.
If you’re wondering what happened to the $10,000,000 that went on mainly tips. Easy come, easy go, eh?
- $38,000,000
The biggest wins can only be found at the casino, right? Wrong, as an unnamed 20-year-old Norwegian man knows only too well.
One evening, this lucky student decided to fire up the internet for a few slots on a progressive game of ‘Arabian Knights’ and won big.
- $40,000,000
To put the former online win into some sort of land-based context, the biggest jackpot winner of all time is only a few million bucks ahead. And Archie Karas only had fifty bucks to his name when he hit a poker table in Vegas.
Using all of his poker skills, Karas went on to win an astonishing $50,000,000. But instead of walking away with his winnings for some happily ever after, he lost the lot shortly after.
There is a well-known saying: be careful what you wish for because you might just get it. If the six big-win stories above are anything to go by, this has a ring of truth about it.
Sure, anyone can win the jackpot. However, holding on to it and your sanity is a different story altogether!