The wheel of fortune does not only spin the roulette wheel, as the participants of today’s ranking, namely the lucky winners of today’s biggest winnings in lottery and gambling, have seen.
We will tell you about the five luckiest players in the lottery, blackjack and poker, bitcoin slots, slot machines, sweepstakes and horse racing, the incredible luck of ordinary people and experienced gamblers. Let’s go in order – from a maximum of 1.5 billion U.S. dollars to a minimum, if that can be said about the smallest 1.6 million euros.
Record lottery jackpots
The absolute leader of this ranking is the record-breaking American Powerball lottery jackpot – in 2016, three people managed to guess the winning numbers and received $1.5 billion for three people. The winners had two options – to receive regular payments over thirty years of 500 thousand each, or to receive the money at once, but less. All three chose this way, and they were given 327.8 million U.S. dollars. It should be noted that such a jackpot was the cause of a real “lottery fever” tickets of this lottery were sold very actively.
The next lottery ticket enriched one person. A resident of the American state of South Carolina in the same 2016 won the lottery “Mega Millions” 1.586 billion dollars, like the previous lucky people chose a one-time payment and received just over half of his jackpot, namely 878 million American dollars. The owner of the ticket to a one-time quick payout also chose anonymity, his name remained unknown to the general public.
Winnings on slot machines
Another popular pastime for fans of bitcoin gambling, rightfully considered slot machines or slot machines that are available in every modern gambling house in Las Vegas, or in the oldest of the land-based casinos Casino di Venezia. In 2003, luck smiled on Ethan Miller, a young computer programmer from Los Angeles. Falling combination of characters brought him almost forty million U.S. dollars. It happened in the amusement capital of the world in Las Vegas, in the casino Excalibur slot machines. It should be noted that the bets made that day Ethan did not exceed the amount of one hundred dollars.
Kerry Packer’s Blackjack record
The third place is taken by the record made in 1997, Kerry Packer at a table with Black Jack, and the already wealthy player from Australia held a winning streak of twenty hands, and the total amount of his prizes was 20 million dollars.
It should be noted that such large winnings do not happen very often in this game, and the record has not yet been surpassed by anyone. Around the victory of Mr. Packer immediately appeared “legends” some so-called eyewitnesses claimed that he left the dealer at his table 1 million dollars for a tip.
The $20 million poker series
Fourth on the list of leaders is American player Antonio Esfandiari – he won almost $18.5 million in poker in 2012. This amount was and still is a record in the history of poker. Esfandiari continues to play, but not he, no one else, to win at least one dollar more yet.
Winning 17.9 million euros on an online slot
The biggest score obtained on online slots, went to the Swede in 2013 on January 13. The record was set on the slot machine “Mega Fortune” from the company Net Entertainment. And it was in the literal sense of mega luck – the player was paid 17.9 million euros. This winning included in the same “Guinness Book of Records”. Lucky guy wished to remain unnamed. Beat his record so far failed.
Record sums won at the races
Not first on this list, but first place in its field goes to two Britons for the most successful bet on horse races. In the mid-spring of 1987, they came to the racetrack in Santa Ana, California, and placed a bet worth less than $65. There were nine horses in the race, so gambling bettors had a choice, but the best decision was made by these two Englishmen – Nicholas Cowan and Anthony Spielman. The betting brought them more than $1.6 million. So far, no one else has been able to repeat this good fortune.
I would like to add another interesting bet on the races – the story of how one penny bet turned into almost two hundred thousand pounds is $250,000 winnings, and again an Englishman. A racing fan bet about $20 on 11 horses and eight of them won their races, which added a quarter of a million dollars to the British man’s budget.
Another lucky break marked a persistent lottery participant. He caught his luck twice and it was truly incredible – for many years in a row, the American picked his six favorite numbers – 15, 16, 18, 28, 36, 49. He stubbornly believed that they would play – and it happened with a probability of 1 in 12 million, the man became richer by half a million American dollars. And a second miracle with the same numbers, with an even smaller, almost impossible probability (1 in a hundred and fifty trillion) happened to this lucky man, sometime later the numbers played out again.
One fresh record was set by a bettor in October 2020. A customer of the bookmaker Marathonbet bought for two euros, which is a little over two dollars, a ticket for an express of 15 soccer matches and everything matched up. Winning the sweepstakes brought the gambling fan almost 900,000 euros. Luck can find its favorite very unexpectedly, but as the most successful bookmakers in history say – do not count only on the goodwill of such capricious goddess as Fortune.