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Online Casino Success Stories: The Biggest Winners in History

January 30, 2018

Over the years of its existence, Las Vegas has given America quite a few millionaires. One of the most outstanding stories of them all was that of Elmer Sherwin, who did what few casino players have done before him: hit the jackpot of the Megabucks slot machine twice in his lifetime, 16 years apart.

But the casino industry has evolved ever since, giving birth to a brand new, more accessible way to play online, with more people who play online slots now than ever. Among the many players, success stories are bound to emerge. So, here are the ones that made the biggest splash of their time.

Charitable Win

Paf.com is an online casino like no other. Founded in the 1960s, Paf (Åland Penningautomatförening by its full name) is a charitable public company running all regulated gambling services of the Åland Islands, an archipelago region of Finland. It is a company that was created for public benefit, meaning that all profits it makes are donated to charitable causes and used for public benefit in Åland. This doesn't mean that it doesn't pay out hefty wins to its players.

Its biggest payout to date was a jackpot worth €17,861,813 (around $21 million today) in January 2013. The winner, a middle-aged Helsinki man who preferred to remain anonymous, was playing the online casino's Mega Fortune progressive jackpot slot machine from his home when he suddenly became a millionaire. The amount paid out by the casino was later confirmed to be a world record by Guinness, breaking the previous record of €11.7 million.

To Good Use

Jon Heywood was an Afghanistan veteran with a serious health issue in his family: his father was in need of a heart and lung transplant. One day in 2015, as he was watching the "telly", as they call TV in England when he saw the ad of Betway, one of the leading online gambling operators in the country. It was convincing enough for him to give the games a try - he registered an account, made a deposit, and tried his luck on Microgaming's "Mega Moolah" progressive slot machine. Imagine his surprise when one of the spins on the game made him an instant millionaire, winning £13,212,882, which at the time was equal to €17,879,645.12.

Heywood later revealed that he intended to spend the bulk of the amount on the best possible medical treatment for his father. Besides, he planned to replace his battered Fiat Punto with a Bentley Continental GT and to take his family on a Mediterranean cruise.

The amount won by Heywood in 2015 was later confirmed to be the biggest jackpot win at an online casino by the Guinness Book of World Records.