Gambling Stories Wins
Gambling harm isn’t just about losing money. It can affect how you feel.
Let’s end with a nice story involving mermaids “I was on a $2 table with three friends and a guy sat down and started betting 25k a hand. Bosses came over and asked if we wanted to change tables etc. So the table gets hot and we all start winning. I mean like 15 of 20 hands we win. The whole table is yelling and screaming. On the evening of Nov. 6, 2001, all of Hong Kong was talking about the biggest jackpot the city had ever seen: at least HK$100 million (then about $13 million) for the winner of a single bet.
We know it can be hard but talking about it means you can start to feel better.
Here are some real life stories of people who opened up and talked about the harm they were experiencing and got the support they needed. Now they share their story with you.
Lachlan's story
“Once I started to open up to people, I was amazed with the amount of support I had.” – Lachlan describes how he was worried to tell people about his gambling because of their reactions but once he opened up he was amazed at the amount of support he got.
View video transcriptBayu's story
“I opened up to a friend about my gambling. The compassion and receptiveness she showed me ignited me to change.” Uni Student, Bayu, shares how talking helped him on the path to recovery.
View video transcriptMario's story
“I’m a lot happier. It was the best thing I ever did.” – Mario, eight years of not gambling on sport, now calls himself a proper tradie and business owner.
View video transcriptKen's story
“Find somebody you love, that you trust, and sit them down and tell them. I should’ve done it years ago.” Former Police Sergeant, Ken, describes how lucky he was to have a supportive family
View video transcript
Lynda's story
“It was hard for me to tell him, but when I did, he was so supportive that it made it easy for me.” Lynda describes how supportive her eldest son was by holding her hand while she called Gambler’s Help.
View video transcriptLynda talks about her counselling experience
“The counsellors have your back and they made me feel worthy”. Lynda describes how seeing a counsellor helped keep her on track.
View video transcriptAnna's story
'Having the support of others was essential and I wouldn’t have done it without them”. Anna lost 10 years of her life to the pokies and now shares her story of hope.
View video transcriptSunenna’s Story
“You’re not alone and help is available.” Sunenna says many people think their story is unique, but there are lots of people fighting similar battles.
View video transcriptChandana's story
“You don’t need to keep it to yourself.” Chandana was shocked to find out about her partner’s gambling. She says that without the help of others, she could never have rebounded so quickly.
View video trancriptGambling harm podcast: Inspiring stories of hope and recovery
There are many ways to seek professional and anonymous help for your own, or your loved one's problems with gambling.
If you need immediate help, please call Gambler's Help on 1800 858 858 or Gambler's Help Youthline on 1800 262 376 (from within Australia only). This service operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week and is free and confidential.
Although it is certainly true that not everyone walks away from the casino a winner, some people are just luckier than others. That is who these stories are about. Common folk that walked into a brick-and-mortar casino or signed into an online one, played the real money games they love, and left millionaires!
Beginner’s Luck?
Craps is one of the more challenging casino games, a pretty complicated one for new players to get the hang of. But this story is bound to motivate several people to start practising!
Grandmother Patricia Dameuro was a newcomer to the dice game when she got involved in one at Atlantic City’s Borgata. She then entered the record books for winning 154 successive throws!
While her total take was never revealed, it is known that her first bet was US$10 and, even if she implemented the most conservative Craps betting strategy, she would have walked away with at least 50 times that.
The King of Payback
The Don Johnson who is the star of this story is not the famous actor we all know and love, but the latter would no doubt loved to have played him. He did not count cards. Instead, he negotiated to get special treatment from the casinos he patronised to get the edge every gambler’s looking for.
Firstly, he sought out casinos with the most favourable house rules. And the payback precept sees you getting a certain percentage of your wager back when you lose. Certain casinos will give their high-rollers 10%, for example. So Johnson’s next step was to arrange to get a staggering 20% instead.
To put this into real money language, if Johnson bet US$500 000, he would get to keep all the money. But, if he lost, he would still get US$100 000 back. He also reached an agreement with the casinos he played at to wager as much as US$25 000 per hand.
His savvy bargaining skills saw Johnson putting US$15 million into his pocket from just 3 casinos in a mere 6 months.
The Largest Megabucks Jackpot Ever
Cynthia Jay worked as a cocktail waitress at the Monte Carlo Resort and Casino in Las Vegas, which is now the Park MGM. In 2000, Jay was celebrating her mother-in-law’s birthday and decided to try her luck on the Megabucks slot machine.
Las Vegas Gambling Stories
The jackpot for this game is a state-wide lottery pool that had been rolling over for some time. On her 9th spin, Jay broke records the world over. Her US$34 959 458 became the largest prize in the game’s history.
Casino Stories
Lightning Really Does Strike Twice
As difficult as it is to get hold of a million-dollar win off a Vegas slot once, one man found himself the doing so twice!
Elmer Sherwin was a 76-year old veteran from World War II when he took home a US$4.6 million-dollar Megabucks prize. He was playing at The Mirage in Vegas and got lucky when the venue was just 10 hours old. Sherwin used his money to accomplish his dream of travelling the world.
Continuing to play just because he loved the games, Sherwin kept spinning the reels a couple of times a week. Then the unthinkable happened, when he became the recipient of another US$21 million in the very same jackpot 16 years after his first win. This time he gave a lot of his winnings to charity, donating much of it to the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Needless to say, many of us the world over are trying to steal his style by regularly enjoying the
https://onlinepokiesnz.co.nz/ so easily available online.
The Luckiest Man on Earth?
Archie Karas gave people all over the world a reason to hold onto the dream of rolling into Vegas with just a few pennies in the bank and leaving with a fortune. Karas hit arguably the greatest hotstreak in the history of gambling.
Karas arrived in Vegas in 1992 with a mere US$50 in his pocket. He was fresh off an enormous loss, nearly US$2 million dollars poorer after a high stakes LA Poker game that went awry. Then he ran into a pal at Binion’s Horseshoe Casino who was able to lend him the US$10 000 he needed to get into a high-stakes game of Razz. This Poker variant sees the lowest hand winning and Kara thought this would go in his favour considering his recent run of bad luck.
And boy was he right.
Just 3 hours later, Kara was able to repay his initial debt along with 50% interest and still have enough money to keep playing. And his run kept going for 3 years, allowing him to amass a total of US$40 million dollars.
Gambling Stories Wins Against
Set for Life
At the luxury Las Vegas Excalibur Casino, an unknown 25-year old Los Angelan man was looking for a way to kill some time while he waited for a Basketball game to begin. He left the hotel with one of the largest payouts Vegas has ever seen, over US$39 million! The young man opted to receive his winnings as annual US$1.5 million payouts for the next 25 years.
A Soldier Gets What He Deserves
Jon Heywood was a 26-year old soldier from the United Kingdom who managed to win US$20 062 600 while playing the Mega Moolah Progressive Jackpot online slot by Microgaming. He took the prize home in 2015 and it entered the Guinness Book of World Records as the biggest online casino win ever.
Stick to What You Know
71-year old Hawaiian Amy Nishimura won her US$8.9 million jackpot while on vacation in Vegas. Nishimura always played the same slot, her machine, at the Freemont Hotel, and she is said to have chatted to it every time she played, asking it to give her some good luck.
It worked!
Nishimura played for roughly 3 hours with less than US$100 before she received her massive payout. It just goes to show that niceness never hurt anyone, even when you’re dealing with a machine, and tenacity pays off in the end.