Microgaming’s Absolootly Mad Mega Moolah pays ‘absolutely huge’ world record online slot jackpot worth €19.43 million
Enormous jackpots are nothing new to Microgaming, its software-licensed casinos, or the countless players who access them. Microgaming is especially famous for its online slot machine jackpots; in particular, the Mega Moolah. That progressive network has paid out so much money, on so many occasions, it’s earned the rightful nickname, the “Millionaire Maker”. Now, it’s becoming just as well known for breaking online progressive jackpot records. Before long, we’ll be calling it the ‘World Record Setter’.
Another World Record Online Slot Jackpot
In a press release issued last week, Microgaming confirmed that one of its Mega Moolah networked online slots was responsible for paying out a new world record jackpot. The game that unleashed the massive prize was Absolootly Mad, a game released hardly a year ago. The “absolutely huge” jackpot it paid was worth a mind-blowing €19,430,723.60.
That life-altering sum of money was paid to one very lucky Belgian member of the Napoleon Sports & Casino online and mobile gaming operation. While the numerical value may not seem as high as the January 2019 payout of $20,057,734 to a Canadian player at Zodiac Casino, the currency conversion rate (Euro versus CAD) makes this latest strike more valuable.
As is often the case with virtual gambling prizes of such size, the winner has chosen to remain anonymous. However, he did provide a few juicy details worth passing on. The lucky Belgian chose to make a small deposit at Napoleon Casino after hearing of another player who’d won two million on the site. His intuition was definitely on point.
On April 27, he was spinning the reels of the Absolootly Mad Mega Moolah Slot when fate rained down upon him with ultimate favour. The randomly triggered bonus wheel game activated, and spun to a stop on the Mega sized prize of €19.43 million.
The fortunate winner found it hard to describe his feelings at that exact moment, saying only that he felt utterly overwhelmed by the experience. Never did he even dare to dream of winning a jackpot of world record-breaking magnitude.
Microgaming / Napoleon “Abbsolootly” Delighted
Both Microgaming and Belgium’s Napoleon Group were quick to acknowledge and congratulate their monumental winner. In last week’s press release, Microgaming CEO John Coleman was up first.
“We’re absolootly (sic) delighted to see Mega Moolah make history once again with its latest record-breaking win, and what an incredible win it is – €19.4 million!”, Coleman enthused. “That’s the largest jackpot payout in an online slot of all time. Congrats to the player, and well done to Napoleon Sports & Casino on their second Mega jackpot win on our network in as many weeks.”
Tim De Borle, CEO of Napoleon Sports & Casino, commented on the new record online slot jackpot as well.
“This is a historic day for Napoleon Sports & Casino. We are completely over the moon. The winner of the Mega Moolah jackpot read about our player winning €2 million+ with the WowPot and pursued his own dreams and luck on the other Microgaming jackpot-giant Mega Moolah,” he said. “It almost feels like our site has become “the home of the jackpot“. This record breaking jackpot is the absolute highlight of the amazing partnership we have with Microgaming.”
Ontario’s lottery program has expanded a lot over the last few decades. Since the debut of ‘Wintario’ in 1975, the ON Lottery and Gaming Corp (OLG) has brought a series of new number draws to the province. Lotto Max, Lotto 6/49 and the Daily Grand are by far the most famous among them, but there are many more you can play – ten of them in all. One that doesn’t get nearly as much coverage is the Ontario Poker Lotto. Even the game’s latest winner, David Haynes, wasn’t a regular player before he cashed in his lucky cards for a cool hundred grand last month.
$100k Payday for Burlington Poker Lotto Winner
Haynes, an auto industry worker from Burlington, is a regular lottery player. In his daily travels, he makes sure to purchase tickets for all the big drawings. The Poker Lotto isn’t usually on that list, but when he saw the jackpot growing quite a bit higher, he decided it was time to play. That decision turned out to be one of the best choices of his life.
On March 4, 2021, 56 year old Haynes matched all five cards on his Poker Lott ticket perfectly. He didn’t know it yet, but when went back to the store the next day to check his tickets, his surprise was catching.
“I was shocked when I used the Ticket Checker to check my ticket,” said the Burlington lotto winner. “The store clerk was just as shocked as I was!”
In his requisite interview with the OLG Claims Centre, Haynes said his regular ticket purchases include the Pick 3, Pick 4, Daily Keno, Lotto Max and Lotto 6/49. He couldn’t be happier that on that fateful day, while buying his usual stack of tickets at the Petro Canada on the Guelph Line in Burlington, he chose to invest a few extra dollars on a Poker Lotto ticket.
What’s Next for Latest $100k Winner?
Immediately after finding out he’d won a 6-figure prize, David went straight to his mother’s house to share the good news. She was just as shocked and excited as he was. But Haynes said it still hadn’t sunk in that he had won all that money, even when he received the payout from the claims centre.
Haynes is turning that disbelief – as well as the current lockdown – to his advantage.
“I plan to sit and look at the cheque to let it sink in before taking it to the bank,” he said. Then, he’ll take some extra time to decide the best way to spend that money, but not until the country begins to reopen.
“I will treat myself more once lockdown is over,” said the Burlington Poker Lotto winner. “Until then, I’ll be the one around town with a permanent smile.”
How to Play & Win Poker Lotto
The Poker Lotto is a unique $2 lottery draw that takes place every day. Instead of the usual numbers, tickets depict five playing cards, randomly selected from a 52-card deck. Each ticket has two chances to win a prize.
The first happens instantly, the moment the ticket is purchased. The ticket’s five cards are assessed, and if they make a winning poker hand, the player can instantly win up to $5,000. For an additional $1, players can activate the “All In” feature, increasing the prizes for the top five poker hands.
The second chance to win comes with the nightly drawing, held at 10:30 p.m. you’ll need to match at least two cards to win a prize. Matching all five cards unleashes the progressive jackpot. The jackpot starts at $10,000 and keeps growing until its won.
Prince George couple wins largest Powerbucks progressive jackpot.
The Powerbucks™ slot machine network
packs one heck of a punch! Carrying a progressive jackpot that’s
linked across gaming machines in four provinces of Canada, the prize
pool grows at an impressive rate. And then, one day, without warning,
some lucky player spins the reels, aligning the symbols just right to
unleash all that pent up wealth.
That’s exactly the situation one very lucky
slots player from British Columbia found themselves in earlier this
month. Two Saturdays ago, she and her husband spent the evening at
their local casino playing one of the regions most popular slot
machine series, the Powerbucks™ progressive. She wasn’t just one
more lucky player who hit a life-altering jackpot. This player won
the…
Largest Powerbucks Progressive Jackpot Ever!
Who is this fortunate slots-spinning casino
enthusiast? Her name is Marlyne Dumoulin, and she won’t
be soon forgotten in her home town of Prince George. That name
is going to be engraved in the BC Lottery Corp’s record books for
some time after she won a record-breaking $2,152,860.
“I was just in shock,” said Mrs. Dumoulin,
who was playing the Powerbucks slot machine at Treasure Cove Casino
on Saturday, July 13,after an afternoon golfing with her husband,
Andy, when the unimaginable occurred. It was so unimaginable, in
fact, that in Marlyne’s mind, there were a few less digits on display
when the prize flashed across the screen.
“I thought I had won $2,100,” explained the
fortunate winner, “but my husband who was sitting beside me said he
thought it was a lot more than that.”
She went on to describe the night as being “so
surreal … I wasn’t able to sleep or eat for the first two days. I
actually have bandages on my fingers from chewing my fingernails.”
More than a week after the big strike, Marlyne
and Andy sat down with Treasure Cove’s Amanda Chandler for a quick
chat about that memorable Saturday night.
Marlyne told Amanada, thinking back on that
fateful evening, “My heart was racing, we were sweating, we both
cried. It was unreal.” Still in shock, they decided to spend the
night in the hotel next door, giving them time to calm down and
figure out what to do next.
By the next day, they had a plan. The happy and
soon-to-be very wealthy couple drove to Kamloops where they purchased
a motor home, then waited for the imminent phone call from the BC
Lottery Corp. When the phone rang, they were told to head to the BCLC
Prize Claim Centre the next morning, where they picked up their
cheque for more than $2.1 million and celebrated the record-setting
payout.
“Everyone treated us so well,” recalled
Marlyne. “From the staff here at the Treasure Cove to lotteries in
Kamloops.” Now days, she and Andy are retired and taking it easy;
enjoying their new-found financial freedom as Canada’s latest
millionaires.
As for Amanda, she was pleased beyond measure
to have been a part of their experience. “They truly are the
nicest, very deserving people and we couldn’t be happier to
celebrate this history making win with them,” she said.
Powerbucks Jackpots Available in Four Provinces
Powerbucks progressive jackpot slot machines,
developed by IGT, are available in four Canadian provinces, including
British Columbia, Manitoba, Prince Edward Island and Quebec. Each of
those areas hosts the games in their local casinos, as well as the
provincially run online casinos of BC and Manitoba.
The Powerbucks jackpot reseeds at $1,000,000 each time it’s struck, and continues to grow with each spin of the reels until it is won. Our deepest congratulations go out to the Dumoulins on their fantastic fortune!
Cheaters
never win! Unless you happen to be one of these guys who won a
fortune by cheating at different casino games.
Cheating the casino isn’t exactly the best way to make your fortune. It’s not so easy, either, especially considering the last few decades or so worth of advancements in technology. Security surveillance is far superior to what was available half a century ago. But it does still happen.
We don’t hear about casino cheats too much these days for two simple reasons; mostly because there aren’t many willing to try it anymore, but also because those who succeed aren’t blasting the news across social media.
Cheating at Different Casino Games
Although not intentional, some casino games are designed in such a
way as to be more vulnerable than others. An entirely computer based
game can be hacked and its software re-engineered to perform
differently. A deck of cards offers no such mechanized manipulation.
Similar rules apply to the number of people involved in the
deception. Any single-player game – a slot machine for instance –
is going to be easier to manipulate with special tools or hacking
software. The fewer eyes upon you, the better. In the same token, a
multi-player game like blackjack is easier to exploit via
distraction, wherein the deceiver gives prying eyes something else –
something less suspicious – to train their scrutiny upon.
Famous Casino Cheats of Past and Present
I certainly don’t recommend cheating casinos – or trying to, as the
case so often turns out to be. I for one would never have the
gumption to attempt it, and I hope you would make the same smart
decision to keep your gaming on the up-and-up. But there are a lot of
people out there who did and do take the renegade plunge. Most of
them failed miserably, paying a high price for their crimes. But not
everyone…
The following is a list of famous fraudsters who pulled off some of
the biggest gaming heists in casino history. Between the most
successful tricksters of old and the biggest failures of all time,
we’ve got a lot of ground to cover, so for now, you can consider this
an ever-growing compilation of casino game cheats.
Richard Marcus – The Drunken Master
I’m starting here because his story is my personal favorite. Richard
Marcus, a former card dealer, was a supremely cunning individual who
used the commonality of social vices against the very casinos that
promoted them. In this case, slovenly drunken behavior.
Marcus’s skulduggery relied upon excellent acting skills, and a great
deal of courage, of which he had both. He was so adept at this
method, he gave it a name – “Savannah”. It’s awfully similar to
the comparably lame technique of past-posting, in which a player uses
slight of hand to inconspicuously add chips to a winning bet. But
Richard’s method was so much more convincing, if not a bit backwards.
In one of his more vividly detailed exploits, Marcus would play
roulette with all the vigor of a drunken master. Upon entering the
game, he would place two chips on a bet. The top chip would be small;
maybe $5. The chip beneath would be of much greater value.
If he lost the bet, he would irately grab his chips from the table –
going against every casino rule in the book – and fling them
straight at the croupier! In the process, of course, he would
cleverly replace the higher value chip with a second $5 chip, which
is exactly what the croupier would expect to find.
If Marcus won the bet, however, he would make a valiant show of the
fact that the chip beneath the $5 was of greater value, ensuring he
got paid for his acceptable, albeit unorthodox manner of chip
stacking. If security were to go back and observe the surveillance
video, nothing out of place would be seen. Such was the wisdom of
Richard Marcus, who managed to dupe the casinos out of an untold
fortune by doing the exact opposite of what was expected – cheating
on a loss, rather than a win.
“Savannah” was Marcus’s lucky lady, and she walked him across the
fiery coals of many gambling adventures without ever getting caught.
We only know of his insurmountable success because he wrote of his
duplicitous exploits in his best-selling books. Of course, by the
time he told the world what he’d done, he was already beyond wealthy
and retired from that swindling lifestyle.
Unfortunately, I’ve lost all respect for the man in recent years. Now, he makes all of his money by bragging and pitting his own kind against the enemy. He runs a blog that supposedly teaches others how to cheat at poker and casino games, and at the same time, offers services to the very casinos he once cheated, teaching them how to catch the people he is supposedly training to bilk them. Not cool, Richard!
Dennis Nikrasch – 2-Step Teaming & Scheming
Dennis Nikrasch (aka Dennis McAndrews) was a very talented man,
particularly skilled in lock smithing mechanics. He used those
talents to his lucrative advantage, taking the casinos for an
estimated $15 million before the FBI got hold of him.
Nikrasch’s story begins as a teenager, when learned the trade of a
locksmith. His unscrupulous ways began there, stealing cars and
burglarizing luxury homes in his community. His reputation grew
quickly, earning him a respected position with the Genesse Crime
Family. The police caught up with him in 1961, and by the time he was
released, he began eyeing new locks – the ones on casino slot
machines.
By simply observing the keyhole on a slot, he found he was able to
fashion a key that would open it. Once in, he used a series of strong
magnets to manipulate the machines into releasing their jackpots. His
actions went unnoticed for eight long and lavish years before one
casino’s security time finally caught on. He was arrested shortly
after.
Following a 5 year prison sentence, Dennis eventually returned to
Vegas in 1991, thinking he’d get right back to his old ways. Slot
machines had changed a lot since then, and Dennis had to come up with
a new way to cheat them. So he did. Nikrasch teamed up with tech
wizard Eugene Bulgarino, a former associate from the Genesse Crime
Family.
Together, the two got their hands on some of the newer slot machine
models and dissected them from the inside out. It didn’t take long to
discover that the computerized machines ran on a microchip, as
opposed to the old mechanical reels, and that the microchip was
responsible for triggering jackpot payouts. After months of hard
work, he was able to replicate the chip, except that his version
would command the game to pay out its top prize the very next time
the reels were spun.
Nikrasch’s biggest problem now was finding a way to switch out the
microchips in a busy casinos without drawing suspicion or setting off
a machine’s tamper alarm. The solution was easy enough – recruit a
large team of helpers to disguise his actions.
While Dennis was sitting at a slot machine, appearing to play the
game, an entire crew of helpers were moving about the casino,
ensuring that his view was blocked from the casino’s security cameras
at all times. Once he had finished replacing the chip, he would leave
the machine and one of the team members would come along to play
instead. One spin later, that inconspicuous member struck the
jackpot.
There’s nothing uncommon about one player walking away and the next
one striking paydirt, thus the casinos didn’t catch on to what
Nikrasch’s team was doing for several years. Odds are they never
would have figured it out if Dennis hadn’t been betrayed by one of
his own partners.
Exactly who turned on him and why is a matter of speculation, but
it’s believed it was a woman from the team who wanted more than
Dennis was willing to give. When she tried to turn him in to the
police, the FBI was eager to get involved, but try as they might,
they could not find a single scrap of evidence that he had tampered
with any slot machine. The security cameras showed nothing, and he
left no trace of manipulation on any machine. Even IGT, the company
that manufactured some of the games he cheated, could find no hint of
tampering.
The FBI resorted to tapping his phone, but of course Nikrasch and his
colleagues were too smart for that. What they didn’t prepare for was
the bugging of Dennis’s home. The FBI overhead a conversation in
which Nikrasch invited Bulgarino to his home. Just hours before,
agents snuck in and planted listening devices throughout the house.
During the meeting, the two discussed every aspect of their previous
crimes in an effort to find areas of improvement. They spoke of
upcoming hits, and ways to spend their ill-gotten gains.
That was more than the FBI needed to storm the home and arrest them both. Dennis Nikrasch plead guilty to all charges and agreed to reveal all of his slot machine cheating secrets to help casinos catch other people like himself. For his cooperation, his sentence was reduced to 8 years.
Tommy Glenn Carmichael – Monkey Paw, Monkey Do
Tommy Glenn Carmichael was a product of the mid
1950s, a time when technology was all the rage. Electronic wonders
were coming out of the woodwork, and they fascinated Tommy. He was
that kid that ignored his friends pleading to visit the soda shop,
and instead stayed in his room, dismantling a ham radio just to see
how it worked.
When he grew up, Tommy’s love of small
machinery led him to open Ace TV Sales & Services in Tulsa,
Oklahoma. The business was going great, but then everything began to
fall apart. Prior drug convictions had him on probation and doing
community service. He was in the midst of divorce proceedings from
his third wife. Similar shops were opening all over town, driving his
revenue into the basement.
Tommy Glenn Carmichael was in shambles.
That’s when Ray Ming, an old high school buddy,
walked back into his life and change everything. Ray led Tommy
outside to his car and told him that the object inside his trunk
would change his life forever. He was right.
Within the confines of Ming’s trunk was a
small-scale slot machine and a cheater’s tool known as a “top-bottom
joint”. Neither Ray or Tommy knew how the gadget worked,
but they were determined to find out. Carmichael took the slot
machine home and disassembled it, learning the inner workings of the
game and how to exploit it with the mechanism. Finally, after
fiddling with the tool for many hours, he felt he was ready to use it
in a real casino.
His first trip to Vegas started with a nickel
machine, which he was to strike a $35 win on. He then moved up to
quarter slots, and by the time the weekend was over, he had taken the
casino for nearly $10,000.
His cheating ways continued with great success
for the next few years before casinos updated their machines to RNG
technology, forcing him to rethink his strategy. Unable to use the
top-bottom joint on the newer models, Tommy limited his gaming habits
to smaller casino joints beyond the strip, where the older machines
were still in use.
Smaller crowds made for easier detection
though, and it didn’t take long for police to catch up to him. They
followed him for a week gathering evidence before he was arrested,
charged and convicted of running an illegal gambling enterprise.
Since he was already on probation, he was sentenced to five years in
prison.
Years later, in an interview with USA Today,
Carmichael said about this time in his life:
“You think about what you did, and the mistakes, and how to correct them. You either get straight or get better.”
Carmichael got better.
In the years he was away, machines continued to
evolve, so Tommy decided to go back to school, so to speak. He worked
multiple minimum wage jobs until he’d saved enough money to purchase
one of the newer machines. Not a slot machine this time, but a video
poker machine. He spent more than a year learning the how the RNG and
micro-processing units worked before he was ready to head back out
into the casinos with his new invention – The Monkey Paw.
It’s engineering was genius, yet its operation
simple. Built with guitar string and steel springs, it did resemble a
monkey’s paw. And when it was inserted up the payout chute of a
gambling machine, it triggered a mirco-switch that released a payout.
Tommy was “winning” thousands of dollars
every outing, but just as before, times were changing, technology was
evolving, and casinos were updating to newer machines. Carmichael
decided to save some time and play it cool, disguising himself as an
affluent with interest in purchasing one of the new slot machines.
Under this presumption, he convinced a casino
employee to open up one of their new machines and explain how
everything worked. In that limited space of time, he conceived his
next big invention – The Light Wand.
As is turned out, the new games were just as
easy to cheat as the old ones, but instead of making contact with the
trigger, he needed only light to pass over it. Like before, the light
wand was inserted into the payout chute. When the light shown on the
sensor, coins were released.
Tommy Glenn Carmichael became extremely wealthy
at this point, not only because his new slot cheating device worked
so well, but because he was making loads of money on the side selling
them to fellow casino cheats. He was so rich at this point, he took a
6 month vacation from Las Vegas, pilfering the machines on casino
cruises in the Caribbean.
Upon his return, Carmichael decided to set up a
team. He partnered with Ramon David Pereira and his old prison buddy,
Michael Balsamo, among others. Each member had an important role,
scoping out the machines, keeping a watch for security, blocking the
line of vision from security cameras at just the right moments.
If the stories are true, these guys were so
successful that at their peak, they were raking in upwards of $5
million a day, virtually raiding the vaults of every casino on the
Las Vegas Strip. Then one day in 1996, it all came crashing down.
The group was running their scheme at the
Circus Circus Casino when authorities closed it. Tommy had no idea
the casino had updated its security cameras. His blockers were no
longer effective. Security saw everything. The moment Carmichael
inserted his light wand into a machine, a team of guards pounced.
He was charged with cheating, manufacturing of
a cheating device, and possession of a cheating device. However,
authorities didn’t have enough evidence to make all the charges
stick. They had to release him the next day.
Tommy Glenn Carmichael was arrested again in 1998, to no avail, and one last time in 1999. That time it stuck. He was sentenced to 1 year in prison and 3 years probation. After his release, he turned his life around, sort of. Carmichael began working with the casinos instead of against them, and made his new fortune developing tools to help stop cheaters. Might as well, since he’s engraved in Nevada’s Black Book of life-time banned players.
Ronald Harris & Reid McNeal – The Ruinous Nature of Greed
In the mid 1990s, a pair of seemingly unlikely comrades were getting rich quick off Nevada casinos. One was Ronald Dale Harris, a respected engineer with a strong background in computer programming and a convenient source of employment. The other was Reid Errol McNeal, an old school yard friend of Ron’s who just happened to be in the wrong situation at the right time.
The story begins in the early 1990s, when Ron Harris applied for a
job with the Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB). He had all the right
skills and his record was squeaky clean, thus he was a perfect
candidate for computer programmer. His responsibilities included
analyzing the state’s slot machine software for glitches and flaws.
In Ron’s defense, he had no intention of going rogue when he was
hired. However, his job granted him access to very sensitive
information, and it wasn’t long before he realized how easy it would
be the manipulate the system from his position. All he had to do was
alter the erasable programmable read only memory (EPROM) within a
slot machine to govern its payout release. And so he did…
Harris knew the inherent dangers of his actions. He knew that if he
went to the casino and won a jackpot himself, it would look awfully
suspicious. That’s when he decided to contact his old childhood
friend, Reid McNeal. The two had stayed in touch over the years,
enough that Ron knew Reid had recently lost his job and was hard up
for cash. Needles to say, it didn’t take much convincing to bring
McNeal aboard.
Ron would program the EPROM chips of certain slot machines to line up
a big win when a certain sequence of coins was entered. Then Reid
would play the slot machines his friend told him to play, in the
exact manner he was told to play them. For instance, one of Ronald’s
favorite sequences – one no other player was likely to insert by
accident – was 3 coins, 2 coins, 2 coins, 1 coin, 3 coins, then 5
coins. If that precise number of coins was inserted per play for six
plays in a row, the sixth spin would result in the big win.
At first, they were the perfect duo, splitting the profits down the
middle. They won relatively lucrative amounts of money, but never
more than a few thousand per strike. It kept the prying eyes of the
NGCB off their backs, and put far more in Harris’s pocket than his
day job allotted. But then, as criminals so often do, the two got
greedy.
In 1995, Ron wanted to try his illicit programming skills on keno
machines, but he didn’t feel comfortable doing it in his home state.
They left Nevada for the east coast, bringing with them all the
equipment required to manipulate a gambling machine on site. They
booked a room at an Atlantic City hotel and set their sites on a keno
machine at Bally’s Park Place Casino.
In the beginning, everything worked just as planned. Harris gave
instructions to Reid, who inserted $100 into the appropriate machine
and – as expected – won the $100,000 jackpot. It was the largest
keno prize ever paid by the casino. But instead of uncorking the
champagne bottles and taking pictures with oversized cardboard
checks, casino staff became instantly suspicious of Reid McNEal.
His first mistake was his lack of reaction. He did not seem surprised
or even excited by the 6-figure win. He remained perfectly calm and
asked for his winnings to be paid in cash. No payout would be
forthcoming however; not just because the casino suspected something
was up, but because any win of $35,000 or more required an
investigation to confirm the win.
As protocol called for, security protected their latest big-money
winner back to his hotel room, where they just so happened to find
Ron, along with all of the equipment the two brought with them to
manipulate the machines and cheat the casino. That was all police
needed to place the two under arrest.
Ronald Harris plead guilty to more than twenty counts, including abusing his position with the NGCB, using confidential information for personal gain, and rigging gambling machines from Las Vegas to Atlantic City. He was sentenced to seven years in prison, but was released on good behavior after serving just two. Reid McNeal cut a deal with authorities, testifying against his friend in exchange for exclusion. Subsequently, all charges against him were dropped.
Ida Summers – The Vegas Vixen
People often jump to conclusions when it comes to the roles women
play in large-scale casino cheating scandals. It is assumed that any
woman is merely a distraction – a decoy – directed by a man or
group of men to swing their hips and bat their lashes while the real
geniuses get the job done. That stereotype had nothing to do with the
success of the fraudulent femme fatale, Ida Summers.
Ms. Summers was, for the most part, a one-woman show, and one of the
most successful Vegas fraudsters of all time. And while she most
certainly distracted the dealers and pit bosses from what was really
going on at the table, it was for her own benefit.
Aside from her deviant charms, Ida’s claim to notorious fame was her
indubitable skill at sleight of hand. From the late 1960s to the
early 1970s, she pocketed thousands of dollars a day at Las Vegas
casinos, mostly by adding or removing cards – sometimes entire
decks or shoes of card! She was so adept at it, she eventually earned
the nickname Vegas Vixen.
We must attribute a great deal of her success to her beauty, and
ability to flaunt it. With a petite frame and slender physique, 5’2”
and under one hundred pounds, every head in the room turned when she
walked in. As competent as she was at sleight of hand, her
flirtations were her most dexterous skill, allowing her to easily
move cards around without notice.
Ida was especially fond of technique known as hand-mucking. It
involves exchanging one or two cards in your hand with outside cards.
In order for this to work, of course, you need the additional cards
to flawlessly match the current cards. She had no trouble solving
that potential problem, either.
Ms. Summers would either steal a deck cards right off the table when
the dealer was distracted, or she would use her charms to convince a
dealer to give it to her, even though it is thoroughly illegal to do
so. The Vegas Vixen was known to draw a dealer so deep into her
flirtations that when she asked for a deck of cards, just so she
could “practice at home”, they were more than willing to risk
their job just to make her smile and flash those beautiful eyes once
more before she left.
Having an entire casino deck to work with, Ida would slide cards up
her sleeve and discreetly pull them out as needed. She used them most
often at the blackjack table to give herself a hand of 21. She was
also known to cheat at Texas Hold’em poker and Caribbean Stud.
In her most daring adventures, she would stack an entire shoe with
“cold decks”, prearranged to guarantee beating the house. Of
course, replacing an entire shoe was much more difficult, and far
riskier, than replacing a few cards. This was one area in which Ida
Summers required help, recruiting a number of people to assist her in
the job. She would remove one shoe from the table and slip the
stacked shoe back in its place, then rest the original shoe in her
lap, just out of sight under the table, until an accomplice could
discreetly take it from her.
It’s crazy how successful she was in these duplicitous endeavors,
despite the seeming blatancy of her crimes. One could say it goes to
show how gullible men can be when it comes to the charms of a
beautiful woman. However, once the casino managers became suspicious
and brought the FBI in to investigate, it still took them several
months to gather sufficient evidence to prove she was, in fact,
cheating the casinos. This attests to her immense skill at sleight of
hand.
Eventually, she and several of her accomplices were caught. The charges against her so well stacked that she should have spent several years behind bars. But her days of charming weren’t over yet. We can only assume that she was able to flirt her way out of the courtroom, handed nothing more than probation, even though several accomplices served time in jail.
Louis “The Coin” Colavecchio – The Counterfeit Con
Louis Colavecchio was not a casino cheater in the traditional sense.
He did not manipulate the games to increase his advantage over the
house. There were no Aces or mechanical devices up his sleeves. Mr.
Colavecchio’s crime was more subtle, and far less detectable by
casino security. He was a superbly skilled counterfeiter of slot
machine coins.
For many years – no one knows for certain how long – Louis was
using special equipment to mint counterfeit coins that perfectly
mimicked the tokens accepted and emitted by casino slot machines. His
coins were so on point, it wasn’t just the cashiers that were
fooled by them. He is believed to be the first counterfeiter that was
able to successfully recreate coins even a slot machine’s
sophisticated software was unable to identify as being fake.
Louis wasn’t always a con artist though. He was the son of a poor
immigrant-turned-businessman who rose up to open his own machine
manufacturing company. In hopes of following in his father’s
footsteps, Louis, who was very intelligent, went to college and
opened a business of his own – a jewelry store in his hometown of
Providence, Rhode Island. It was years later, after a brutal burglary
destroyed his business and almost took his life, that Louis got
involved in counterfeiting.
Using the insurance money from the robbery, he opened a new jewelry
store and began taking “business trips” to Atlantic City. Those
trips were actually a front for a new addiction – playing slot
machines. The store, in turn, became a front for counterfeiting
coins. He started out minting fake chips for the blackjack and poker
tables. This was far easier than slot machine coins, but yielded a
minimal profit. Eventually, he decided the reward outweighed the risk
associated with counterfeiting slots tokens.
Louis would make his way to Atlantic City, bringing a stash of coins
he’d minted on a machine originally built to engrave jewelry. He
would then use these coins to play the slot machines, appeasing his
addiction with no risk to his financial welfare. A bad run lost him
nothing, but when he had a good day, he was able to cash out for pure
profit.
Mr. Colavecchio is said to have made over one million dollars
counterfeiting slot machine coins before the law finally caught onto
his deceptive ways. It started with a phone call to the New Jersey
Department of Gaming Enforcement from Caesars Palace after the staff
discovered a massive surplus of $10 slots tokens during an annual
inventory check. All other casinos in the area were informed, and
when they ran their own counts, they found equally sophisticated
counterfeit coins in their network.
The casinos were put on high alert, and when Louis Colavecchio and
his then-girlfriend, Donna Ulrich, entered Caesars Palace the
following weekend, it didn’t take long for security to catch on to
their suspicious habits. They spent hours watching the two, making
note of their game choices. When they left, security opened those
machines to find counterfeit coins in the hoppers of each and every
game they had played.
In 1998, Louis and Donna were arrested. Authorities found them in
possession of 750 pounds worth of counterfeit coins from various
casinos in New Jersey and Connecticut. In exchange for a reduced
sentence, Colavecchio agreed to tell the casinos how he had
counterfeited the coins so perfectly. He spent the next 7 years
behind bars.
Upon his release in 2006, he went right back to his old ways. Within a few months, Louis was arrested for the exact same activity. Years later, after statute of limitations had been exceeded, it was revealed that rumors of Louis Colavecchio’s involvement with the mafia were true. He admitted that the brutal robbery of his first jewelry store was really a premeditated scam to claim insurance money. He is also said to have been involved in other mafia-related robberies, arson fires and shootings. Louis was arrested again in 2013 for drug trafficking.
Phil Ivey & Cheung Yin “Kelly” Sun
The name Cheung Yin Sun may not ring a bell, but surely you’ve
heard of the highly decorated, world-class poker pro, Phil Ivey.
He’s got 10 WSOP bracelets under a multi-million dollar belt. But
poker isn’t the only game he excels at. Paired with Cheung Yin Sun
– better known as “Kelly” Sun – this
duplicitous duo was caught cheating more than one casino out of
massive amounts of cash.
Ivey and Sun seemed to be the world’s most successful baccarat
players, right up until the casinos figured out how they were getting
so lucky. The two were using a special technique known as edge
sorting. This system only works if 1) the players are extremely
observant, and 2) the deck of cards in use has some sort of
discernible flaw in the pattern printed on the back of each card.
Some say these two actually manipulated the cards in some way to
achieve their edge-sorting advantage. Whether that’s true or not,
we don’t know. What we do know is that Ivey’s immense bankroll
and intelligence, combined with Sun’s expert edge-sorting
capabilities, made one heck of a time – for a while.
Ivey and Sun famously cheated the Crockfords Club casino in Mayfair,
London in 2012. While playing Punto Banco for high stakes, they
utilized an erroneously printed pattern on the cards that helped them
predict whether the next card would be high or low. In this way, the
two were able to wrangle up a massive £7.7 million in winnings at
Crockfords alone.
Unfortunately for them, that kind of cash isn’t handled directly.
When Ivey requested the winnings be transferred to his bank, the
casino instead froze his account and launched an investigation. Soon
enough, they filed charges against the two for outright cheating.
Ivey of course claimed that they had merely found a fair edge and
used it to strategically win. After a 5-year court battle, the London
Supreme Court sided with Crockfords, declaring Phil Ivey and
his accomplice were “undoubtedly cheating”. Thus, the
casino did not have to pay Ivey or Sun the millions of pounds they
had illegitimately won.
Crockfords wasn’t their only high-rolling haunt. When the pair
weren’t edge-sorting the Punto Banco tables in London, they were
doing the exact same thing at the Borgata Casino in Atlantic City. It
wasnt’t until the Borgata caught wind of what was happening across
the ocean that they took greater notice of Ivey’s baccarat play at
their own establishment. Low and behold, Ivey always played alongside
Kelly Sun, and together they had taken the Borgata for more than US
$12 million in April 2012.
The Borgata, having already paid out their winnings, filed charges
against the duo – more severe charges than they faced in the UK.
Ivey and Sun were accused of cheating, and were also brought up on
charges of fraud and racketeering (via the RICO
Act). If convicted on all counts, they would have faced at
least $30 million in fines, not to mention jail time. As it was, the
extra charges were dropped, leaving Ivey and Sun to pay back the more
than $10 million.
While Phil Ivey was attempting to file an appeal against that
judgment, he was also learning that the UK courts had ruled against
him. He would not be receiving any money from Crockfords Club.
Without that cash, he told the courts he could not afford to repay
the Borgata – that the “enormity of that amount would clearly
be of devastating impact”, resulting in “irreparable harm”
to both Phil Ivey and Cheung Yin Sun.
Borgata wasn’t falling for it, and neither were the courts. Ivey
did not have enough liquid assets in New Jersey to cover the cost,
but he had no trouble spending money in Nevada – including the $10k
buy-in for the 2018 World Series of Poker Championship. The NJ courts
ruled that the Borgata could pursue Ivey’s assets in Nevada,
including any futures winnings from poker, until the casino had been
paid in full.
Phil has yet to give up on the court battle. In March 2019, he filed
an 800-page appeal in hopes of practically rearguing the entire
original case. He maintains to this day that neither he nor Sun
interfered with the deck of cards in any way. However, it was proven
that the two requested the same deck be used for an extended period
of time. During that time, they were placing $150,000 bets, and won
$12.6 million. When a pit boss intervened and demanded that a new
deck be introduced, Ivey and Sun immediately cashed out and left.
Phil Ivey finished in the money in several events at the 2019 WSOP,
where he won a combined $133,395. He never saw a penny of it, though.
WSOP host Caesars Entertainment instead sent the money to The
Borgata, which had obtained a court order to seize his poker winning
in Nevada. To date, still owes millions of dollars to The Borgata.
What’s it like to go from week-to-week pay cheques to instant
millionaire? That’s a question every slot machine fan from Nunavut to
New Guinea has asked themselves. We dream about it all the time. But
for one very lucky Saskatoon man, it’s not longer a dream. It’s a
heart pounding, life altering reality.
That man is Kevin Olsen, an average working Joe from
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. His life is anything but average now after
collecting a little more than one million dollars on the push of a
button. That button just happened to be connected to the Western
Canadian Lottery Corporation‘s (WCLC) immensely popular VLT
jackpot game, Vault Breaker.
Olsen Scoops $1.14M Vault Breaker Jackpot
The Saskatoon man’s epic windfall is a story for the ages. Mr. Olsen
was winding down at the Coachman Beverage Room in Market Mall
on the evening of Sunday, June 9. He was seated in front of one of
the province’s relatively new Vault Breaker video lottery terminals,
spinning the reels for small increments when the most incredible
thing happened.
Kevin Olsen unleashed the game’s 7-figure grand jackpot! In the blink
of an eye, he was $1,149,131.61 richer.
“I was in total disbelief!” Olsen told WCLC
media reps when he arrived to collect his winnings and take his
obligatory photo with the cardboard cheque.
“I called my sister and told her I won $1.14 million,” Olsen
recanted the story of that memorable evening. “She couldn’t
believe it. I guess the good news travelled fast because soon the
rest of my family was at the Coachman celebrating with me.”
No doubt it was a night the Olsen family and everyone at the Coachman
that night will remember for a long, long time to come.
When asked what he planned to do with his new found wealth, Kevin had
a few ideas. “I’m going to pay some bills and try to invest the
majority of it”, he said. Mr. Olsen won’t be quitting his day job
just yet, but he does believe “retirement might actually be in
sight” thanks to his fortuitous win.
“I’ll keep working for now, but maybe not quite as hard,” he
quipped.
Vault Breaker VLT Pays $7.1M in 2 Years
The Vault Breaker video lottery terminal has become quite popular
since the WCLC introduced it in 2017. It is limited to Saskatchewan,
with approximately 4,200 networked machines dotting the provincial
map. The game’s jackpot seeds at $500,000 each time it’s won, and
grows from there each time it’s played, until another lucky winner
strikes the big prize.
The Vault Breaker Jackpot comes in three levels – Mini, Major and
Grand. Each is guaranteed to strike by the time it reaches its
maximum level. The Mini pays anywhere from $100 to a max of $500. The
Major will pay $1,000 to a max of $5,000. The Grand starts at $500k
and is guaranteed to strike before exceeding its maximum payout of
$1,500,000.
To date, 8 players have triggered the Grand Jackpot, with cumulative
prizes totaling more than $7.1 million to date. Vault Breaker’s
largest payout was its first grand release of $1,224,014.81, awarded
to Judith Kaprinka in December 2017. Olsen’s win last weekend resets
the jackpot back to $500k.
Gambling 101: Probabilities predict theoretical returns, not future results.
Casino gambling can be a tumultuous thing. It comes with deep swings – ups and downs that can send our emotions soaring through the clouds one day, and our bankroll down into the doldrums the next. The transient nature of casino games is more volatile than most people realize, leading them to believe that with the right strategy, they can overcome the odds.
Therein lies one of the most common mistakes of novice gamblers –
the belief that acquiring enough knowledge will give them the upper
hand against the casino. Unfortunately for us players, it doesn’t
work that way; at least, not anymore. And thanks to super intelligent
computers that can crunch millions of numbers in under a second, it
never will again.
Knowledge and skill are the experienced player’s friend. They can
help the gambler to gain the best edge, but not a player’s edge. No
matter how smart or mathematically inclined a person is, they cannot
use that knowledge to predict the gambling future.
I know that a French Roulette wheel has two different levels of house edge. Even-money bets have a better payout rate than any other bets that pay 2-to-1 or more. I also know that those bets have a 1.35% house edge, which means players who make those bets should (collectively and over a long period of time) win back 98.65% of all those wagers.
This knowledge of the game should provoke me to place only even money
bets. Employing the skills that this knowledge has taught me, I will
avoid the 2.7% house edge of all other bets and stick only to those
that have the highest rate of return.
In this way, I am applying both knowledge and skill. But neither of
these assets can predict the game’s future. I’ve gained no insight as
to whether the next number will be black or red, odd or even, high or
low. It is not going to help me predict future outcomes. The only
thing my mental acuteness for French Roulette has given me is the
keen ability to, on average, lose less money than an inexperienced
player who wagers the full gambit of the roulette betting diagram.
Gambling’s Future Results are Unpredictable
Okay, you’re going to argue with me here. I know half the world predicted New England would win the Super Bowl over the Rams this year, and the other half doesn’t watch football. But it’s rare such simple bets come along. In a casino, they simply don’t exist.
None can predict with 100% assurance that will win the next slot
machine pull, hit 3 of 3 keno numbers, or be dealt a blackjack. None
can, with consistent accuracy, foretell when the craps shooter will
crap out or the baccarat banker and player will tie. Were there any
source of knowledge or superlative skill that gave players the
ability to predict the gambling future, casinos would have been
driven out of business long ago.
Play Smarter – Know The Difference
In gambling, the only realities are these:
Some players will win money
Some players will lose money
More players will lose than win.
Such is the ecosystem of casinos. Those who understand this – and
use combined knowledge and skill to make smarter decisions – will
not only have a higher chance of being among that first group of
winners. They’ll also have the wisdom to bet responsibly and take
their losses in stride.
Missing bar code leads alleged lottery cheat to UK court.
They say cheaters never win, and winners never cheat. In some cases, cheaters do win, for a while, but their indiscretion tends to catch up with them in the long run. Call it fate; call it karma; call it an ominous court date for October 16, 2018.
That’s the day 53-year-old Edward Putman will faces accusations of fraud for a lottery cheating scandal that dates back to 2009. If convicted, at the least, Putman would be forced to repay the £2.5 million lottery winnings he claimed nearly a decade ago.
Initial Investigation of £2.5mm Lottery Cheat
When the lottery ticket was first claimed oh-so-long ago, it raised a number of red flags. Those flags should have been enough to stop Camelot, operator of the UK National Lottery, from paying out the claim. Instead, Camelot delivered the 7-figure jackpot prize, despite highly suspicious circumstances.
The problem is that every UK lottery ticket that is printed contains a series of information. The time of printing, the draw date, the numbers, these are what most ticket buyers look at. But each one should also contain a special bar code. This is the code that is scanned by retailers and claims centers to validate the ticket, doubly verifying all of the information above it…
Mr. Putman’s winning lottery ticket did not have a bar code.
Following Camelot’s distribution of the multi-million prize, the UK Gambling Commission (UKGC) launched a lengthy investigation into the matter. In 2015, Putman was cleared of all suspicion, with no charges laid against him. Regulators were unable to come up with any evidence that he had used a fake ticket to claim the winnings.
Camelot wasn’t so lucky, though. The operator’s failure to deny the claim pending investigation cost them more than the claim itself. The company was fined £3 million for paying what UKGC termed a “highly likely” case of fraud.
Camelot Determined to Pin Putman for the Crime
Unsettled by the UKGC’s decision, Camelot wasn’t willing to let the matter go. The lottery operator spent the last three years investigation the situation and building evidence against Mr. Putman. What they uncovered was an alleged lottery cheating scheme that goes way deeper than originally thought.
According to a suit filed in UK courts, Putman wasn’t working alone. Prosecutors allege that he had the help of Giles Knibbs, an inside man working for Camelot in 2009. Knibbs had access to ticket printing machines, and according to the company, gave Putman information about an unclaimed lottery ticket—the original ticket they say was intentionally and fraudulently mimicked by Knibbs, then claimed by Putman.
As the investigation went on, and accusations began to fly, tragedy struck. In August 2017, Giles Knibbs committed suicide. Now, Edward Putman is left to face the charges alone. Prosecution will present its case on October 16, at which time Putman will have to explain how he came into possession of a winning lottery ticket without a tell-tale bar code.
If the alleged lottery cheat is found guilty, the Proceeds of Crime Act will require him to repay the £2.5 million prize he claimed back in 2009. As for flagrant fraud, the judge will decide what punishment, if any, is in order. For Camelot, it will represent majority recompense for the fine incurred in 2015 for negligence.
Jackpot Giant progressive $12 million prize 2-1/2 years in the making.
In December 2014, leading digital games creator Playtech released a revolutionary new online progressive slot. They called it Jackpot Giant—quite appropriately, I might add. And right now, it’s more popular than ever before.
As of today, Jackpot Giant is prepared to pay out more than $12 million to one immensely lucky player. That phenomenal payout, once it occurs, will change the life of that very fortunate player forever more. The question every wants the answer to is simple; when this illusive progressive will shed its colossal wealth?
Jackpot Giant Progressive 2-1/2 Years in the Making
It’s been an inordinately long time since this online progressive slot ladled up its delectables; 884 very long days, to be exact. That’s 2 years and 21 weeks, since January 20, 2016, when the game last unleashed its ultimate payout.
That wasn’t just the last time the Jackpot Giant struck gold… it was also the first time since the game’s late-2014 release. That sizable reward of $6,420,011 went to a anonymous and incredibly happy librarian from the beautiful port city of Glasgow, Scotland. She was spinning the reels of Jackpot Giant on her Android mobile phone via the Gala Bingo website when the unimaginable payout struck.
This time around—unless the jackpot strikes in the very near future—the online progressive slot machine is on track to double its previous jackpot payout. But without a strain of previous wins to draw calculations from, it’s virtually impossible to predict how soon—or how long it might be—before that life changing moment occurs.
How to Win the Jackpot Giant Online Progressive Slot
The Jackpot Giant—the main character for which the game was named—is an immense giant who presides over a volcanic island. Consisting of 5 reels and 50 fixed pay lines, the game consists of thematic symbols that include the giant, volcanoes, uncut jewels, and rock formations in the shape of playing card values (J-Q-K-A). A gold emblem is the wild, handful of gold coins the scatter, and erupting volcano the bonus.
Unlike most of today’s 5-reel progressives, players won’t need a series of specific events to occur in order to hit the jackpot. This game mimics the slots of old, where a single, perfect combinations of reels instantly awards the progressive jackpot. In this case, players must line up 5 wild symbols on the first reel, while utilizing the bet max feature, to strike the Jackpot Giant fortune.
Lining up 5 wilds on any other pay line won’t deliver the progressive, but it won’t disappoint either, worth 50,000x the line bet. Landing bonus symbols anywhere on reels 1 and 5 in a single spin will unlock a second-screen bonus game, wherein player choose 3 of 6 volcanoes. Each volcano awards an instant cash prize, an extra pick, or if you’re really lucky, all prizes at once. The scatters won’t unlock any special features, like free spins, but they do offer attractive scatter pays of 5x, 50x, or 500x the total bet when 3, 4 or 5 appear anywhere on the reels.
All in all, the Jackpot Giant Progressive isn’t an easy game win—obviously, having only been struck once in almost 4 years—but it is a graphic beauty, and a highly entertaining game to play. It carries a medium variance and an RTP of 94.22%, which is relatively high for any online progressive slot.
NetEnt celebrates 2nd millionaire in 2018 on Mega Fortune Dreams Slot.
NetEnt is stealing the spotlight from Microgaming today. Both are universally-renowned developers of digital gambling content; both featuring a famous, millionaire-making progressive jackpot slot machine. And while it’s often Microgaming’s Mega Moolah that’s making all the headlines, NetEnt’s Mega Fortune progressive is giving its rival a run for their money; lots and lots of money!
Its was confirmed this week that NetEnt’s Mega Fortune Dreams paid out a tidy sum of €4,084,430.35 on Wednesday, March 7. This marks the second time in 2018 NetEnt in celebrating a new lucky millionaire in its midst.
Mega Fortune Dreams Slot Pays €4M
The fortunate winner, hailing from Sweden, was spinning the reels of NetEnt’s Mega Fortune Dreams last week when the enormous multi-million progressive jackpot was struck. The player’s identity remains anonymous, but we do know that he/she was playing the game at Unibet Casino when the jackpot was hit.
Confirmation of the win came directly from one of NetEnt’s highest ranking executives, Chief Product Officer Henrik Fagerlund. “At NetEnt, this is what we do: thrilling entertainment,” he says.
“We’re delighted that Mega Fortune Dreams has created yet another multimillionaire,” continues Fagerlund. “The game is a real favorite, and we hope 2018 continues to be a great year for more and more lucky players!”
On January 23, another lucky player became an instant millionaire on the Mega Fortune progressive jackpot. That winner was playing the original Mega Fortune Slot release, not the luxury-themed Dreams edition, but the progressive jackpot is the same, linked across all Mega Fortune variations. That UK player scooped a life-altering €2,553,604.67.
Mega Fortune vs. Mega Moolah
These two multi-million progressive jackpots have a lot in common. For example, they each feature a scaling series of progressive jackpots that can be won; three for NetEnt, four for Microgaming. They each deliver their jackpots at random, triggering a 3-tier wheel that must spin its way to the central wheel, and land on the ‘mega’ jackpot position, to strike. They also each come in multiple themes and variable reel-sets to play on.
NetEnt’s Mega Fortune Progressive can be won on three variants. There’s the original Mega Fortune Slot, the Mega Fortune Dreams, and Mega Fortune Touch (same as original, but specifically for mobile users). Microgaming’s Mega Moolah is available on five games; the original safari-themed Mega Moolah (3-reel and 5-reel editions available), Mega Moolah Isis, Mega Moolah 5 Reel Drive, and Mega Moolah Summertime.
Both have paid out similar amounts of cash in the last decade. This latest multi-million progressive jackpot release is #44 for NetEnt. Microgaming’s latest strike, just one day later on March 8 for $4.4M, marked #46 for that brand. The Mega Fortune averages about €4 million ($4.94m) every 10 weeks. The Mega Moolah averages $5 million (€4.04m) every 9 weeks.
The biggest difference between these games is the jackpot seed. Each time the Mega Fortune or Mega Fortune Dreams Slot jackpot is won, it re-seeds as €250,000. Microgaming, on the other hand, re-seeds its Mega Moolah jackpot at a whopping $1,000,000. As such, every winner of the Microgaming ‘Millionaire Maker‘ is guaranteed at least 7-figure payout.
Royal Vegas Casino player wins CAD $7.45M on Mega Moolah progressive.
If you didn’t believe that Microgaming‘s progressive online slots could really strike, think again. It’s been confirmed that, last week, a lucky Canadian member of Royal Vegas Casino struck the brand’s most lucrative, multi-million jackpot – the Mega Moolah – for a whopping CAD $7.45 million.
The munificent jackpot was struck on Tuesday, February 27, 2018. Confirmation from Royal Vegas came in today. The fortunate player, now $7,452,254 richer, has not been named, but is a long-time member of the online casino, hailing from Canada.
This win marks the 45th recorded strike for Microgaming’s Mega Moolah, a.k.a. the ‘Millionaire Maker‘, since 2009. The lucky strike is far from being the online progressive’s largest payout in history, but is still quite a bit higher than the average payout of about $5 million.
The largest prize on Mega Moolah paid £13,212,882 to a UK member of Betfair Casino in October of 2016. That staggering payout still holds the Guinness World Record for highest online slot machine jackpot in history.
Mega Moolah Progressive, One Million Strong and Growing
The Mega Moolah is one of the very rare online progressives that starts out with a 7-figure jackpot each time its awarded. The jackpot seed is reset to $1,000,000, and grows at an incredibly rapid pace, often climbing no less than $250,000 per day.
That phenomenal rate of growth can be attributed to the game’s exponentially rising popularity. Its popularity, in turn, is attributed to its frequent release, averaging once about every nine weeks. And the more people play, the faster it will continue to grow, thus the cycle continues to accelorate.
It doesn’t hurt that Microgaming’s famous progressive is employed by more online casino operators than any other million dollar jackpot slot. Royal Vegas Casino is just one of more than a thousand gambling websites that boast the Microgaming software brand.
It’s not unheard of for the Mega Moolah’s largest jackpot to pay back-to-back, either. The lowest jackpot ever released was a mere (ha!) $1,013,791, unleashing barely an hour after the previous jackpot. Fortunately, no matter how little the jackpot grows, it will always deliver a life-altering amount of money to each of its winners.
Update: Mage Moolah Strikes Yet Again!
By the time this article was ready for publication, the news spread that the Mega Moolah has been struck yet again! This time, the prize amounts to $4,365,300. There’s no word yet on who won the jackpot, what country they’re from, or which online casino they were playing at when the multi-million dollar prize was released. We do know it was hit less than 20 hours ago, on the evening of Wednesday, March 7, 2018.
This latest Mega Moolah jackpot comes just 8 days after the previous $7.45 million win by Canada’s lucky Royal Vegas player. It serves as further proof of just how often Microgaming’s million maker can pay out, and how fast the jackpot is climbing. In a mere 8 days time, it rose from $1,000,000 to $4,365,300, representing an average growth rate of more than $420,000 per day; $17,500 per hour; nearly $300 per minute.
They say cheaters never win, and winners never cheat. In some cases, cheaters do win, for a while, but their indiscretion tends to catch up with them in the long run. Call it fate; call it karma; call it an 
