📰 How Do The Biggest Online Poker Wins Compare To Other Online Gambling Wins?
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Online poker has become incredibly popular as one of the top forms of gambling, captivating millions of players worldwide with its huge prize pots.
Achieving success in poker requires that tricky combination of luck and skill, and, yet, the virtual poker world has witnessed some remarkable victories that will go down in the annals of gambling history.
Patrick Antonius
First on the list is Patrik Antonius, a poker player from Finland. Under his pseudonym 'FinddaGrind,' Antonius has amassed a fortune of $12 million, with almost $6 million of this coming from PokerStars. One unforgettable moment in Antonius's career was when he walked away with a pot of $1.35 million after an intense high-stakes PLO showdown against Viktor Blom. And, in February of this year, he beat Eric Persson to a record-breaking pot worth $1,978,000, the biggest pot ever broadcast on a U.S. poker livestream.
It's worth noting that Antonius began his journey, over two decades ago, with a deposit of just $200.
Justin Bonomo
In the world of online poker, Justin Bonomo claims the distinction of being the only player to have amassed $60 million in winnings, having achieved the milestone in January of this year. His journey to success includes 2 final table appearances in a Bahamas tournament, where he came painfully close to winning $640,000. Hailing from Virginia, Bonomo has won 3 World Series of Poker bracelets and has an impressive record of 9 seven-figure victories. One particular highlight was his triumph in the $1 million buy-in tournament, known as The One for One Drop in 2018, where he walked away with a cash prize of $10 million.
Elton Tsang
Next on the list of big winners is Elton Tsang, an investor and entrepreneur who rose to prominence in online poker by winning an astonishing windfall of $12.2 million at the exclusive One Drop Extravaganza event held in Monte Carlo in 2016. Tsang was personally invited by Guy Laliberte, the founder of Cirque du Soleil. Tsang emerged victorious against 25 opponents to secure one of the largest payouts ever recorded in poker history.
Dan Colman
At the age of 23, Dan Colman achieved a remarkable online poker triumph by winning a staggering $15 million. He won the huge sum when competing against 41 players who had each put up $1 million in a three-day charity poker tournament held in Las Vegas. Colman's notable achievement was his win in the Big One for One Drop event at the 2014 World Series of Poker. It is truly extraordinary considering that prior to this victory his total winnings amounted to $350,000. Surprisingly, Colman had considered leaving poker to pursue education but decided to give the game one chance after facing some difficulties with college applications.
Other Types Of Online Gambling Wins
It's not just poker where players have won massive cash prizes; far from it, in fact. From slots to crash games, many online gambling games have prizes just as big as some of poker’s biggest prize pools.
Crash gaming is making a huge impact on online gambling, with many people keen to test their metal in this exciting game. Players bet a certain amount, and if they correctly predict the outcome, they can multiply their wager many times over. As the multiplier increases, the payouts become larger, so it’s clear to see that it could produce some sizeable wins (source: https://cryptonews.com/news/best-crash-gambling-sites.htm). While crash gaming doesn't have the mammoth prize pots of some of the major poker competitions, the more you stake, the more you stand to win if the multiplier climbs high enough.
One of the most famous wins comes from the Exillion YouTube channel, where two German gamers had a crash game that resulted in an impressive victory. They started their gaming journey with a pretty big bet of $1,000, and strategically set the automatic cash-out function to exit the game when it reaches a 10x multiplier. As the gameplay unfolded, so did the palpable excitement. Both players were thrilled when they managed to cash out an amount of $10,000.
Not bad for a few minutes of gambling. However, there are some even more eye-watering amounts of money that have been won with online slots.
When it comes to big wins one unforgettable moment occurred in 2016 when an enigmatic individual known only as 'DP' logged into her online casino account using an iPad. With a mere $1 deposit on Mega Moolah, she embarked on a journey that would change her life forever: Little did she know that within minutes she would become a millionaire, almost 9 times over, in fact, when she managed to win a cool $8.82 million.
While it may sound like a story from a movie, it does prove that sometimes even casual online casino players come up good.
In another incident in 2013, that made DP's winnings look like a drop in the ocean, a man in Finland in his 40s decided to pass his time by dabbling in online betting. Little did he know that his choice of playing the Mega Fortune jackpot would lead him to a windfall of $24 million.
Another huge winner, Rawiri Pou, a New Zealand man, also made his fortunes on the Mega Moolah progressive slot game, like DP. On that fateful day in 2016, Mr. Pou's life changed forever as he struck gold, winning a staggering $7.4 million. Interestingly, he initially began playing online slots that very same day to hone his skills, never anticipating such a monumental win.
Then there's the story of the British soldier-turned-millionaire, Jonathan Heywood. The specifics of Heywood's winning game in 2015 remain somewhat of a mystery, but his astounding $17.2 million victory etched his name in the annals of online casino history as one of the most significant wins ever recorded.
Another captivating European success story hails from Norway, involving a student who found himself battling insomnia in 2011. In a bid to pass the time during sleepless nights, he ventured online, unwittingly setting the stage for an extraordinary twist of fate.
Choosing a progressive slot game, the student experienced a life-altering moment when he scooped a stunning $13.3 million after just a few spins. What adds intrigue to this story is that his fortune was amassed through free spins generously granted by the casino, although the specific slot game remains a mystery.
Fast forward to 2017, when a mobile jackpot win remains unmatched in the realm of mobile casino gaming. An anonymous player achieved this remarkable feat by accessing an online casino via a smartphone device in April 2017. Once again, the Mega Moolah slot delivered an astounding $9.2 million to the lucky player's bank account. This achievement surpassed the previous mobile jackpot record set in 2016 by over a million dollars.
From these impressive wins, we can see that slots can compete with poker in terms of huge winnings, but million-dollar wins seem to come less frequently than they do at the poker table.
