25 Aug

Penny Slots pay $10.7M Jackpot to Hawaiian guest of Wynn Las Vegas

Penny slots are easily the most popular reel spinners in Las Vegas and beyond. We all know that it will cost more than a penny to spin those reels, but even a max bet tends to fall well within a casual gambler’s bankroll budget. For one woman from Oahu, Hawaii, a mere $3 play at the Wynn Las Vegas turned out to be just enough to change her life forever.

Wynn Las Vegas awards $10.7 million on Megabucks Penny Slots

The lucky lady was playing a property-branded version of one of the most lucrative International Game Technology (IGT) networked slot creations of all time. The game in question was Megabucks Wynn Wheel, and it’s jackpot had already surpassed the 8-figure mark when the anonymous winner claimed her seat around 9:00 p.m. on the evening of Sunday, August 21, 2016.

After inserting a note into the penny slots and pressing enough buttons to bring her bet up to the $3 max, the fortuitous Hawaiian was astounded to find her life would never be the same. The symbols fell into place, aligning perfectly to unleash the massive Megabucks jackpot worth $10,777,270.51.

According to officials from Wynn Las Vegas, the woman requested that her identify be kept confidential, but that didn’t stop the casino resort from lauding the exorbitant penny slots’ win on their social media sites.

In confirming the release of the $10.7 million Megabucks jackpot, Wynn Las Vegas posted the following tweet on its Twitter page Tuesday morning:

How would you celebrate if you were the lucky winner of a $10.7 million jackpot on one of our slot machines?”

The responses were swift and plentiful, with some of the casino’s fans pronouncing their willingness to retire, others promising a quick return visit to the casino, and one going so far as to say they would stay at the Wynn until the entire jackpot winnings were depleted.

Why is Wynn So Happy to Award $10.7M?

You would think a casino would groan every time a progressive jackpot strikes, especially when it’s worth 8-figures and change. But that’s not actually the case. Wynn and other casinos couldn’t be more excited for their progressive slots winners, because it’s the creators of the slot machines that actually payout the winnings.

That’s right – IGT was the account holder that wired $10.7 million to the lucky Hawaiian woman this week. When progressive jackpots are networked over countless machines in multiple casinos, the money that’s drawn into the progressive is reserved by the manufacturer, who cuts a check for the winner after technicians confirm the legitimacy of the jackpot’s release.

Live/Online Slot Machine Record Jackpots

The Megabucks Wynn Wheel was developed by IGT exclusively for placement at the Wynn Las Vegas property, and actually features the smiling visage of gambling tycoon Steve Wynn as on of it’s top-paying symbols. However, the lucrative progressive jackpot grows at a rapid rate due to its being linked to myriad Megabucks slots all over the world.

In fact, the Megabucks series of IGT penny slots are responsible for paying out the largest progressive slot jackpot in the history of Las Vegas. The record payout, worth $39,710,826.36, was struck on March 21, 2003 by a Los Angeles-based software engineer at the Excalibur. The instant multi-millionaire was just 25 years old at the time.

That lucky slots spin was more than twice the current world record online slots progressive payout of €17,879,645 ($20,062,600, £13,209,300), which was awarded to UK resident Jon Heywood on Microgaming’s Mega Moolah at Betway Casino on October 6, 2015.