Set in the Nevada desert, Las Vegas is the undeniable home of gambling, with millions of tourists flocking to its 24/7 casinos and famous nightlife armed with pockets of cash and hoping to double it but more likely to lose it. And yet, that’s not the case for everyone. Some leave Sin City with life-changing sums of money. These are the biggest winners in Vegas categorised by each popular casino game.
Roulette
In 2004, British businessman Ashley Revell won $272,000 after he put his life savings on the line at the Hard Rock Casino on a single spin of American roulette. Given that he put up $136,000, such a risk would hardly seem worth it to double your money, but that’s what Revell did. To build his bankroll, Revell sold everything he had, including his set of golf clubs and his BMW and stuck the lot on red, watching with bated breath as the ball went into motion. The whole thing broadcast in the U.K. by Sky One as a reality mini-series called ‘Double or Nothing.’ Revell later used the money to set up the short-lived online poker company called Poker UTD where people could learn how to play Omaha Hi-Lo or Texas Hold ‘em before launching his own iGaming Recruitment agency website.
While this is typically accepted to be the biggest roulette win in Las Vegas folklore, there have been bigger bets made. Take, for example, the cast of another reality TV show, ‘The Buried Life’, a show about four people and their bucket list. The U.S.-based show is about 100 things the characters want to do before they die, one of which was to make a million dollars. To do this, the gang staked $125,000 on even-money roulette bets with the hope of rolling it over three times, which by the end, had snowballed enough to make up the largest roulette bet in Las Vegas history at a hefty $250,000. As you may have already noted, we didn’t list them as the biggest roulette winners, and that is because on the third role, the boys lost the lot.
When it comes to blackjack, one legend stands above all others, and that’s Australian billionaire and media magnate Kerry Packer. The legend goes that he racked up winnings of between $24 million and $33 million while playing blackjack over the course of his extraordinary gambling career. Some worthy wins along the way include his 1991 scoop of $7 million collected at the Las Vegas Hilton casino (now the Westgate Las Vegas), and his 1995 win of $20 million at the MGM Grand. The latter came after Packer allegedly played eight hands simultaneously at numerous blackjack tables at bets of $250,000 per hand. He then won 20 times in a row within 40 minutes before cashing out, leaving behind $1 million in tips for the dealer.
Another notable Vegas blackjack win was the unnamed man dubbed ‘Shoeless Joe’. He was a rough looking older man believed to have been kicked out of the house by his wife and in a state of disrepair. The homeless hustler cashed in his $400 Social Security check walked into the Treasure Island Casino in 1995 and began playing blackjack with an apparent lack of knowledge of the game. According to accounts, he split his 10s and doubled down on hard 12s and 13s. Still, he walked away that week with a cool $1.5 million. I say walked, but in truth, he was, despite his turn in fortunes, aggressively annoying to the point of being thrown out of the casino.
Poker
Scott Blumstein from New Jersey won the 2017 World Series of Poker (WSOP) Main Event, a game of Texas Hold ‘em, taking home $8.1 million for his efforts. It was once again at the WSOP (known for putting up the biggest prize pools in the game) that the biggest ever scoop came in 2012 at the Big One for One Drop Invitational event. Here, Antonio Esfandiari, known as ‘the Magician’, walked away with a cool $18 million when he claimed first place in the event.
The live poker tournament comes at a $1 million buy-in, which all 48 players contributed, but Esfandiari outlasted them all. The additional amount applied to the pool came courtesy of the BIG ONE, which directs a percentage of each player’s buy-in to the One Drop Foundation, a global water charity created by Cirque du Soleil founder Guy Laliberté. Even the second-place player took home $10.1 million for his efforts. For the record, Laliberté cashed in the same tournament in fifth place for just shy of $2 million himself.
Slots
In Las Vegas, slots players don’t fare much worse. The largest jackpot in recent memory came back in 2014 when an unnamed player from Las Vegas walked off with a cool $14 million. The spectacular win wasn’t even collected on a planned visit either, as the lucky winner was in town visiting a friend at the time. They entered the Rampart Casino, on a whim, and after five minutes of playing slots, he collected the life-changing sum of money. That, though, dwarfed in comparison to Johanna Huendl, who collected $22.62 million in 2002, also on a Megabucks machine. At first, the 74-year-old did not believe what she saw, mistaking the payout for a mere $2 million, but she was wrong — luckily.
Before that, in 1998, a former airline flight attendant spent $300 and won a whopping $27.5 million at the Palace Station, which represents a fantastic return on investment. There was also Cynthia Jay Brennan, who, while working as a Sin City cocktail waitress, won $34.9 million in 2000. Having only invested an initial $27, its safe to say she gave up her day job after that win. But the biggest of them all was 25-year-old IT professional Ethan Miller who took home a mind-bending $39.7 million from the Excalibur after spending only $100. The lucky thing.