The most I ever saw a person lose was about $9 million in one night. While that may seem like an obscene amount of money to you or I, that’s what he budgeted himself to gamble that trip. He came knowing he may lose $9 million.
Casinos make the games with the lousiest odds the most attractive by amping them up with flashing lights and bright colors. At craps, for instance, the craziest bets—“the Field,” “Any 7.

Everyone wonders how big some jackpot wins are. If you've wondered what is the most money ever won on a slot machine, you're in good company. We wondered the same thing and did some digging to see what we could find out.

The Nevada Gaming Control Board found that in 2017 there were 38,434 slots in operation across 40 locations on the Las Vegas Strip. It was estimated that those machines generated revenues worth.

Megabucks Slots Often Leads to the Biggest Slot Machine Wins

Megabucks slots is a progressive jackpot slot from IGT. It's linked to many of the biggest payouts on slot machines. Since it's debut in 1986, it's paid out more than $1 billion dollars in prizes. #1 – 25-Year-Old Software Engineer Wins $38.7 Million While killing time before the 2003 NCAA tournament started on TV, an anonymous 25-year-old software engineer decided to risk $3 on a slot machine at Excalibur Hotel Casino in Las Vegas. That $3 turned into a stunning $38.7 million jackpot on Megabucks slots. #2 – Cynthia Jay-Brennan Wins $34.9 Million In 2000, Cynthia Jay-Brennan won $34.9 million playing Megabucks slots at the former Desert Inn in Las Vegas. Sadly, weeks after claiming her jackpot prize, a drunk driver crashed into the car she was in. She was paralyzed and her sister did not survive the crash. #3 – An Anonymous Woman's $27 Million Win At Palace Station Hotel in Las Vegas, one woman played Wheel of Fortune slots and won $680,000. She opted to keep playing, In just a few months, she hit a $27 million jackpot on Megabucks slots. #4 – Woman Wins $22.6 Million at Bally's There is a pattern with Megabucks slots leading to some of the biggest slot machine wins in history. In 2002, a woman playing at Bally's Las Vegas won $22.6 million on that same game. #5 – Elmer Sherwin's $21 Million Win Elmer Sherwin fought in WWII and often played slots in Las Vegas after retirement. Shortly after The Mirage opened its doors for the very first time, Sherwin won $4.6 million playing Megabucks slots. His luck repeated itself in grand fashion when he won $21 million just shy of two decades later at the age of 87. Once again, he was playing Megabucks slots. #6 – Anonymous Player Wins Just Under $12.8 Million Megabucks slots paid a prize of just under $12.8 on a $6 bet. The player was at Aria in Las Vegas for her niece's birthday when she hit the jackpot. She said she'd chosen Megabucks slots completely by chance. #7 – Rodolfo T. Wins $11.8 Million Betting just $3 on Megabucks slots, Rodolfo T. of California won the jackpot worth just over $11.8 million. That 2017 win at the Fremont Casino isn't one of the biggest from Megabucks slots, but it still made him a very happy man.

Are Any Other Slot Machines Linked to Huge Payouts?

While Megabucks slots certainly is linked to many of the largest slot prizes in history, there are some games that have also made players very happy. At Harrah's Las Vegas, a man won $1.18 million playing Wheel of Fortune slots in July 2018. This was the second large payout from that machine. Earlier in the month, a player won almost $250,000 on Wheel of Fortune at the Cosmopolitan. A Gulf Breeze, Florida, man took home a jackpot of almost $1.3 million playing Double Diamond slots in Biloxi, Mississippi. He kept playing and won an extra $14,000 a little while later. That's not the largest win in the area. Hard Rock Casino reported that the largest prized they'd given away was $14 million to a player playing Wheel of Fortune slots.

There's One More Crushing Win

In 2016, Katrina Bookman was playing Sphinx slots in New York when the machine told her she'd won a $42.9 million jackpot. It would have been the largest prize in history. The problem is the top prize on the slot machine is $6,500. She was told the machine had malfunctioned and that the most the casino could do is give her the last prize she'd won of just over $2 and a complimentary steak dinner. She is suing the casino and IGT. There's one thing all of these players have in common. They never expected they'd win the jackpot when they placed their small bets. You could join them. Whether you try Megabucks slots or something else, Lady Luck could put you on the list of the biggest slot machine wins in history. To accomplish this, you need to play slots online or at your favorite land-based casino.

Craig B. asks: What was the largest bet ever made?

The history of gambling is littered with examples of people dropping unthinkable amounts of money on things as trivial as the toss of a coin or a single roll of dice. Despite stories of such wanton excess, including many of individuals winning or losing tens of millions of dollars in a single night, discerning which of these high-rollers holds the honor of making the largest single bet in history is rather difficult. This is in part because casinos and bookmakers tend to keep information about especially large bets close to their chests. For example, prior to the 2018 Super Bowl, it was reported by the MGM Grand in Las Vegas that an unnamed gambler had placed, to quote, “one of the largest reported bets… in Nevada”, wagering that the statistical underdogs, the Philadelphia Eagles, would beat the spread. The problem was that while MGM’s vice president of race and sports, Jay Rood, was happy to report that the bet was amongst the largest Vegas had ever seen, he refused to specify exactly how much the anonymous gambler had actually wagered or who had placed the bet. The same is true of similarly large bets placed in recent years with casinos and bookmakers being frustratingly opaque when it comes to reporting the exact amount especially brave or wealthy gamblers wager on sporting events and the like.

All this said, the nature of high-stakes gambling and the kind of personality that tend to gravitate towards it means that there are countless stories out there detailing frankly astonishing displays of testicular fortitude.

As for a few of the largest of such single bets we could track down, consider the story of William Lee Bergstrom, better known more simply as the Phantom Gambler before his identify was later discovered. In September of 1980, Bergstrom casually strode into Binion’s Horseshoe Casino in Vegas carrying $770,000 (about $2.6 million today) in cash in a suitcase. He subsequently walked over to craps table and explained that he’d like to bet it all on a single throw of dice- a wager it should be noted that represented, at the time, the single largest well documented bet ever placed in the United States. After a few nervous glances were exchanged between the croupier and the pit boss, casino owner Ted Binion intervened and told Bergstrom that the casino would of course honor the bet and personally walked him over to the cashier’s cage to have his money converted into chips. You see, at the time Binion’s had a policy that if it was a gambler’s first visit to the casino, they’d honor a bet of any size and Ted Binion wasn’t a man who was want to go back on his word.

As promised, Bergstrom took the chips and bet them all on a single throw of dice, which he won. Bergstrom then walked back over to the cashier’s cage and had all his winnings converted back into cash, which he then divided between the original suitcase his money had been stored inside of and an empty suitcase he’d seemingly brought along just in case he won.

Binion would later recall that he personally escorted Bergstrom to his rental car and observed him nonchalantly throwing the suitcases onto the passenger seat before driving away. During the entire ordeal, Bergstrom barely spoke and reportedly reacted to the news he’d won the equivalent of $2.6 million today with nothing more than mild surprise. Because he never told anyone his name and the bet had been so astonishing, Bergstrom came to be known in Vegas as the Phantom Gambler as well as, perhaps more aptly, the Suitcase Man.

Things got even more curious when, in 1984, Bergstrom once again walked into Binion’s and did the exact same thing, this time betting $538,000 (about $1.3 million today). As before, Bergstrom bet the entire amount on a single throw of dice (which he again won) and left the casino without acknowledging what he’d just done or really speaking to anybody outside of the minimum needed to make the bet and cashout.

A few months later, Bergstrom strolled into the casino again and bet one million dollars on another single throw of dice. On this occa

Most Money Ever Bet In A Casino