If you’ve ever played a spin or two on an online slot game, you’ll know the thrill and exhilaration you feel as the reels spin and the anticipation of waiting for them to stop. For most people, when playing slots online you either lose a little cash or make a tidy sum, but for the people below things were a little bit different. They really hit the jackpot, becoming multi-millionaires. The lucky dogs! Here’s our very own list of the biggest casino winners ever.

Aberdeen

Take for example the Aberdeen fisherman, who wished to remain nameless, who netted a whopping £5.4 million from a 20p bet on the Hall of Gods – one of the many jackpot slot machines found on VeraJohn. The father-of-one managed to catch the single biggest payout for the site, BetVictor, before returning to work on the cold fishing vessels because he loved his job. We’re not sure we’d stick around ourselves. We’d probably prefer to take a rest from work, just like the Lincolnshire-born John Orchard, who scooped an astonishing £5.8 million on the Dark Knight video slot in 2012. He was working for the Employment Service and had planned to retire five years later, but thanks to his fantastic windfall he was able to hand in his notice early and enjoy a few more years relaxing at home.

Australia

The Dark Knight game was also the game of choice for an Australian winner, who was lucky to collect a huge win of approximately £6,521,506 before the game was discontinued earlier this year due to licensing issues. The game featured four progressive jackpots, the mini, minor, major and mega, and our plucky player was fortunate enough to grab their win when the mega jackpot was absolutely huge!

Greece, New Zealand & the UK

But for all the appeal and glamour of the Dark Knight, it’s worth knowing that some of the biggest windfalls ever paid out were from the Mega Moolah game, which is an altogether more humble affair. The winners have spanned the world, coming from Greece, New Zealand, and even the UK. One of the most enigmatic winners is so anonymous that we do not even know the country that they live in, but we do know that they won the largest progressive jackpot from a mobile device – a sum of €7.9 million (£7,135,049). More incredibly, they signed up using a promotion that required only a £1/$1/€1 deposit, meaning that they’ve made an unbelievable return on their tiny credit.

Our guy from Greece was a 36-year-old business owner called Georgios who became richer to the sum of approximately £5,688,376 in 2009 and was totally blown away by the news. We think we’d need an ouzo or two to recover afterwards, as well! Our New Zealander was a young shocked Maori man by the name of Rawiri Pou, who took away an incredible £5,945,269! But the real show stopping win goes to 26-year-old soldier Jon Heywood who hit the jackpot for £13.2 million after betting a mere 25p!

Afghanistan

Jon, who had served his country in Afghanistan, somehow managed to keep the secret of his win for three days before spilling all to his delighted family. But unlike some young men who may have ideas of spending their cash on a lad’s holiday abroad, Jon knew exactly how he wanted to use his new-found wealth. He explained that his father needed a heart and lung transplant, so he was going to spend any money necessary to get his dad the best care he can afford. What a wonderful gift to give someone.

Two other big winners hailed from Sweden and Norway, and these Scandinavian chaps both hit the jackpot on Mega Fortune. Both young men, the first Alexander, was only 30-years-old when he logged on to his PC at home in Sweden and selected the NetEnt game. The possibility of winning he big jackpot was probably the furthest thing from his mind – those things just DON’T happen – but after a few minutes the canny Swede found himself waking his sleeping wife up to celebrate a £7,746,680.86 win! As for spending his winnings, he decided a disciplined approach was the right thing, and paid off his mortgage and treated himself to a new car. Rather sensible, too! 

His Norse counterpart was also a young male, who found himself much, much richer than he had started the day with. On the 24th September 2011, he won the grand total of £10,600,265.19 – a sum which at that point was awarded a Guinness World Record for the largest ever jackpot payout in an online slots game. He says he wasn’t planning on playing the game, but it was a particularly sleepless night, so he decided to have a go on the slot. After he had won he found himself unable to get to sleep until 6:00 am the next morning because of the surprise and shock!

It would be remiss to forget to give Hall of Gods a bit more credit than we had previously. Created by Net Entertainment, the progressive slot allows players to spin for just 20p and features three progressive jackpots. Two of the top jackpot wins ever have come from the game which features the Norse gods Odin and Thor (and his trusty hammer). One of these people was a woman from Sweden, who became the fifth person to join the ‘millionaires club’ since 2009 after winning an awe-inducing £6,865,689 in 2012. She was pipped slightly by another unknown player who won their fortune from Betsson Casino three years later. It is not known if this person is male or female, we don’t even know their age or location – but we do know the sum that they received for their bet an amazing £7,063,420. That will buy you an awful lot of summer holidays!

But the world record slot machine fortune goes to a lucky man in Finland, who wished to remain anonymous. The 40-something Fin spent just 25 cents on his win on Mega Fortune, which totalled €17,861,800 (£16,135,466 in sterling). The life-changing win occurred on 20th January 2013. Now wouldn’t it be amazing if we could all have a dream come true like that?