Casino Big Wins: How does it work and does it happen often?

Casino Big Wins: does it happen often and what to expect? Big Wins at online casinos can come from videoslots. For instance, when you hit a Free Spins feature. Or when you hit a Jackpot of course. Look at some of these only casinos below for nice videoslots with big win possibilities:

What happens when you win a jackpot?

One of the worries of many people who have recently won a jackpot, is that they must now pay taxes on their winnings. Whether this is the case or not depends on the country of residence the winner is currently living in. To illustrate, two examples. The United States of America and the Netherlands. Two vastly different countries with entirely different systems of taxation.

Taxation on winnings in the United States of America

The Internal Revenue Service of the United States of America (or IRS for short) is the service that deals with taxes on the federal level in the US. As such they collect taxes from basically every source of income for American citizens. Online gambling is completely illegal in the United States, but they do have several prominent casino cities. Las Vegas, Atlantic City and New Jersey are the most well-known of these. Unfortunately for American players, they do have to pay taxes on their winnings. This includes not only winnings from casino games, but also lotteries, horse races, off-track betting, sweepstakes, and game shows. The losses players experience are somewhat deductible, however. Players can deduct these losses up to the amount that is offset by their winnings, and they must be able to prove it through records of their winnings and losses. The IRS takes on average 24% of winnings as taxes.

What exactly is a jackpot?

A jackpot is essentially nothing more than an extra high cash prize that can be won in a game of chance. Every time a game of chance is played, part of the bet is set aside in an extra pot: this is added to the so-called jackpot. The big advantage of this set-up is that the jackpot does not have to be guaranteed to fall: this way, the jackpot can just stay there until the next time if no one has won. However, the word jackpot is also popularly known for anything that expresses a big prize, basically just as the word ‘bingo’ does. Have you won a nice prize? Then you have hit the ‘jackpot’ or it is ‘bingo!’ In a figurative sense, the term is also used to denote an unexpectedly favourable result, like an unmissable windfall. Yet in theory, a jackpot is not exactly the same as a big prize or a grand prize. Illustrative of this is the top prize in the State Lottery, which always stands at a certain amount. In addition to this main prize, there is also a separate pot of money exclusively earmarked as a jackpot. As a result, a separate draw also usually applies. As a result, two draws are held, each representing its own prize.

A progressive jackpot is a prize that keeps rising as more people play the game. This of course requires money to be wagered, and those wagers collectively ensure that the progressive jackpot keeps rising. With each bet, a portion of this amount is donated to the aforementioned pot earmarked for the jackpot. In some games, such as online slots, it is common for several games from the same game developer to be linked together. As a result, people around the world are therefore playing for the same jackpot. Progressive jackpots are most often seen in video slots. Video slots are the online counterparts of land-based slots, of which classic slot machines are again the most popular. As slot machines began to develop online as well, a variety of game themes began to appear, all of which would by now have nowhere near the setup and gameplay of a traditional slot machine. We therefore refer to them as video slots. However, the aim is often the same as that of a typical slot machine, namely to achieve as many winning combinations as possible on the so-called paylines.

Within the magical world of video slots, players win biggest on jackpot slots. These are the video slots that feature one or more jackpots. A video slot is an online game made up of reels that can spin. Some games are well-known for the incredible jackpots they offer to players. A few examples are the following:

Mega Moolah:

This game from Microgaming has been keeping people’s minds busy for years, and that is not so much due to its extraordinary graphics or original game theme. No, with this game, the player’s main concern is the jackpot. What can it yield? Well, €18.9 million, for example. In fact, that amount was won on Sunday 29 September 2018. And with that, the game developer immediately set a world record. Which it has broken around three times since then, by the way.

Mega Fortune:

This game is often mentioned in the same breath as Mega Moolah. Now, the name alone immediately suggests that this game can bring in quite a fortune. The game itself fortunately lives up to these expectations. In 2017, for instance, it brought in jackpots worth a whopping €30 million. Playing takes place on five reels and three rows and you may travel to an exotic island filled with luxury to do so. This game has three progressive jackpots, which means that when players win, they win big.

Hall of Gods:

This game is also from NetEnt, and, like Mega Fortune, there are again three jackpots to be won. In terms of theme, this production is completely different again, but the question is whether that will matter much to the player. Anyway, Hall of Gods is all about the gods of Norway. This makes it an entertaining game that takes the player to a mysterious world, where everything and everyone can be forgotten for a while. The game itself also looks fine and the payout percentage stands at a neat 96.5%.

Video slots are not the only well-paying games available. Some others are the following:

Blackjack

The combination between a jackpot and the card game blackjack might sound a bit crazy at first. After all, we all have our own idea of a jackpot, and most people will not immediately think of blackjack. Jackpots are often associated with the aforementioned video slots, but also with scratch cards, for instance. Yet, with some blackjack variants, it is also possible to win a so-called blackjack jackpot. We have some examples of blackjack variants for you: High Streak Blackjack: in addition to the normal blackjack game, this game also offers a fun option to place a side bet. You then bet on the possibility of a winning streak, which can result in great prizes.

Crazy Blackjack: as in classic blackjack, the aim in Crazy Blackjack is to have more points than the dealer, but obviously not more than twenty-one. In addition to the regular bet, Crazy Blackjack also offers a side bet. There is even a side bet where you can win the jackpot of tens of thousands of euros. Premier Bonus Blackjack: this variant is played with two standard 52-card decks which are shuffled every round. Up to five hands can be played at the same time. We are talking about a so-called hole card game, in which the dealer is dealt one open and one closed card. Besides the normal hands, you can also place a side bet. This creates more excitement, and the possible winnings are also immediately a lot higher.

Lottery

With lotteries, each lottery has its own policy on whether to include a jackpot. If it does, a separate draw is usually held. Other providers may have the condition that a certain number of lottery tickets must be sold first. It is also common for jackpots to have to be split between multiple winners.

Online jackpot, who pays?

Software provider

First, we have the progressive jackpots, which use a progressive system. For instance, it is very common for the jackpots of multiple games from the same developer to be linked together. Every bet placed on the individual games linked to that same network, contributes to the final jackpot tally. Of course, here, some games can be played at multiple online casinos. In this case, the payouts are therefore made by the game developer itself and not by the online casino. There are also games that are part of a series and thus have a shared progressive jackpot.

Operator

Of course, there are also jackpots with fixed amounts and thus without a progressive system. In that scenario, the online casino itself may also be responsible for paying out the prize. Some jackpots are therefore made available by the operator itself and are thus casino dependent. And then you better hope that you are playing at a reliable operator. Having money in your account is great fun, but ultimately you want it deposited from there to your bank-account. However, it is not just about whether you get paid out, but also in what way.

Notable jackpot stories

Jackpots are unfortunately not for everyone and for that very reason a nice win always makes for a delightful story. In some cases, however, it becomes quite legendary. Thus, we have some remarkable jackpot stories for you:

Croatian lucky player gives away jackpot

The life story of Croatian lucky player Frane Selaks is so remarkable it is almost unreal. In fact, the lucky man escaped death seven times: he survived a train disaster, a plane crash, two bus accidents and three serious car crashes. As if that was not enough, he decided to give away a jackpot he won of a whopping €800,000 to friends and family. Moreover, in 2010, he even gave away his entire fortune. He moved from a private island to his familiar cottage in the small town of Petrinja. From his last money, he bought an artificial hip and would have a religious altar built.

Canadian is 7 seconds late for a multi-million-dollar deal

Canadian Joel Ifergan bought two tickets for the now defunct Lotto Super 7 Draw on 23 May 2008. He did so at 20:59, exactly one minute before the deadline. However, his first lot was printed for the 23 May draw, but his second lot was printed at 21:01:07 and therefore counted for the next draw on 30 May. Unfortunately, that very second lottery ticket would have earned $27 million, albeit that it was printed 7 seconds late. To make matters worse, although he was on time with his application, the printing system took a few seconds longer, causing his million-dollar prize to slip away. Ifergan would spend €100,000 in court fees on top of that, to no avail.

Two brothers win slightly different amounts

James and Bob Stocklas are two brothers who both decided to place their bets on the world-famous Powerball lottery. They both bought a ticket in Florida, which would bring them both a prize. Yet those prizes varied considerably. In fact, Bob won only $7, while James managed to pull in a whopping $291 million. After all, he had won the jackpot. Still, the brothers could laugh about it and James already told his brother he did not need to worry. After all, they were still brothers. Many families came into conflict over similar amounts of money, but James apparently values family more than monetary gains.

Jackpot winners

The word jackpot has become a universal concept. Yet there is one country we think of above all when our thoughts stray to the magic word jackpot: the United States, and Las Vegas in particular. It is therefore not particularly surprising that the highest jackpot ever hit was also in the US:

United States

The Mega Millions lottery regularly makes headlines worldwide, and that is partly because of the record amount of 1.4 million euros won in October 2018. The winner came from the US state of South Carolina and was allowed to choose whether to have a one-off equivalent to 794 million euros paid out, or to have the total amount of equivalent to 1.4 billion euros spread over 29 years; it is an incredibly awkward choice to make.

Highest online jackpot

We already mentioned Microgaming’s game once above and we are happy to rub it in again. Because the highest online jackpot won comes in the name of Mega Moolah. In September 2018, it won €18,910,668.01. Such wins are quite rare, but they do happen.

How will the jackpot be paid out?

What if you win? One of the most important first considerations depends on how the jackpot is paid out. To explain this, we cite a well-known example. In the State Lottery’s Dream Salary draw, for example, you have the choice of having the amount paid out all at once or opting for a monthly amount. With that, the same setup already mentioned above applies to the US Mega Millions lottery. As with Mega Millions, a monthly payment with the Dream Salary draw seems much more interesting. After all, with a monthly payment, you end up with a much higher payout than with a one-off payment. Yet with this monthly payment, no inflation adjustment is taken into account, so the choice suddenly does seem a lot less interesting.