Jon Heywood was a 26-year-old British soldier when he opened a Betway Casino account on an October evening in 2015. He deposited £30, started playing Mega Moolah at 25p per spin at Betway Casino , and had a documentary about World War II tanks on in the background. Twenty-five minutes later the progressive wheel triggered. He thought he had won £10,000. He had not.

The final amount was £13,213,838.68. Guinness World Records certified it as the largest jackpot payout in an online slot machine game. It is still the official Guinness record, for the simple reason that Games Global has not bothered applying to update it since, even though larger jackpots have since been paid.

Heywood's father was seriously ill at the time, in need of a heart and lung transplant. His first priority was covering the medical bills. He also gave £4 million to a childhood friend. Years later, in interviews, he said he was still working, fixing baths for a living. His reasoning: money you have not earned is harder to hold onto.

Neil from Aberdeen had never deposited at an online casino before. He saw a Casumo advert, signed up, deposited £30, and decided to try Hall of Gods , a NetEnt Viking-mythology progressive jackpot slot. He triggered the bonus round and hit the Mega Jackpot on his first session. His first thought, by his own account, was that someone was winding him up.

Casumo confirmed the win. Neil described writing each digit of the total on individual pieces of paper and laying them on the floor to try to make the number feel real. The full amount was £6.3 million. His first ever casino session. His first ever deposit. £6.3 million.

His surname has not been made public. Casumo kept the details private, as most casinos do when the number gets this large.

Michael Clark was 32, a care worker, father of three, and engaged to Sherelle Pooley for seven years. On a January evening in 2023, he found the Christmas TV repeats uninspiring and opened the Betfred app. He played King Kong Cashpots for twenty or thirty minutes, hit a bonus round, reached the Jackpot King wheel and landed on the top prize.

He initially thought he had won £5,000 and was happy with that. Then he realised there were too many digits. He rang his parents and could not stop crying. The total was £5.4 million, the largest payout in Betfred's 56-year history at the time.

The plans he shared publicly were characteristically grounded. A new stairlift for his grandmother so she could stay in her own home, an upgrade to Sherelle's engagement ring, a wedding reception at St James' Park, a honeymoon in Jamaica (Sherelle had never been on a plane), and a new car, possibly a Tesla, once he had passed his driving test on a full licence. His mates started calling him Micky Millions. He said he was going back to work once the dust settled.

In April 2021, a UK player triggered the Mega prize on Book of Atem WowPot , an Egyptian-themed slot from All41 Studios running on the Games Global progressive network. The payout was £15,183,085, larger than Jon Heywood's Guinness World Record win in 2015. It has not been submitted for Guinness certification, which is why Heywood's record officially stands.

The winner stayed anonymous. Games Global confirmed the payout. The game had only launched as a Microgaming exclusive a short time before the jackpot fell.

WowPot was still a relatively new network when this landed. Before this, Mega Moolah was the name everyone knew. After this, WowPot was on the list.

Not UK, but it belongs here. The same game, Mega Fortune, is available at most UK-licensed casinos, and this is the win that put it on the map. A 40-year-old Finnish man placed a €0.25 bet on Mega Fortune at PAF Casino on 20 January 2013. He had played small bets across various games regularly. That particular spin triggered the progressive jackpot: €17,861,800, paid in full as a lump sum.

He later described the moment as a mix of disbelief, joy and shock, that he wanted to laugh and cry at the same time, and that for several days he could not fully accept that it had happened. Guinness named it the largest online slot jackpot at the time. It held the record for two years until Heywood came along.

Mega Fortune is a NetEnt progressive jackpot slot available at most UK-licensed casinos. This is the win that made Mega Fortune famous.

Darren Yates was a self-employed joiner in Morecambe when he placed a 50p Super Heinz and a £1 each-way accumulator on all seven of Frankie Dettori's rides at Ascot's Festival of British Racing. His outlay was £67.58. He had noticed that Godolphin's Dubai-wintered horses tended to be ahead of their British counterparts early in the season, so he backed four of them and threw in Dettori's other three mounts.

Dettori won all seven races, the first jockey to do so on a full British card. The starting price odds across the card multiplied out to 25,095/1. Yates watched the final race, Fujiyama Crest, Dettori's least-fancied ride of the day, at a small local bookies called Pauline's. Bookmakers had shortened the price to 2/1 trying to reduce their liabilities. When Fujiyama Crest won, he said he felt numb.

William Hill paid £550,823.54. Yates used it as seed capital for a property development firm called The DY Group, which he sold in 2019 for £35 million. He also became a well-known racehorse owner, spending record sums on jumps horses including a £620,000 purchase of Interconnected in 2019. In early 2025 he sold his Grade 1 winner The New Lion to JP McManus and announced he was stepping back from ownership. His £67.58 bet was the beginning of all of it.

The Tote Jackpot is a pool bet where you pick the winner of six consecutive races at a nominated meeting. Everyone's stakes go into the same pot, and if nobody picks all six winners, the pool rolls over to the next meeting. By the time Whiteley played, the jackpot had been rolling over long enough to reach just over £2 million.

Steve Whiteley was a 61-year-old heating engineer from Tawton, Devon, when he attended Exeter Racecourse in March 2011. He was there on a free ticket promotion. He had, in his own words, no knowledge of horse racing. He filled out a Tote Jackpot slip more or less at random, picking the winners of six consecutive races for a £2 stake.

One of his selections was Lupita, a horse that had failed to win in its previous 26 races. It won. All six legs came in. After the Tote's deductions, Whiteley's share was £1,445,671, the largest single Tote payout in British history and a Guinness World Records entry.

He had been to a race meeting once in his life. He picked horses he knew nothing about. He got £1.45 million.

A Leicester-based punter had been placing accumulator bets on horse racing almost every day for twenty years. He placed a £19 bet during the Punchestown Festival, five fourfolds and a fivefold, which included Woodland Opera at 9/2 and Canardier, a 33/1 shot that came up on the line to complete the five-timer.

He only realised he had won when he checked the results in the early hours of the following morning, after returning from a night out. The return was £822,972.75. He said winning the bet was the realisation of a lifetime's dream, and that he planned to retire early.

He stayed anonymous. The figures have been consistent across every publication that covered it.

On the Friday card at Royal Ascot in 2022, a William Hill punter placed a £2.50 each-way accumulator covering all seven races on the day. The final odds amounted to 122,889/1. The bet required Inspiral and six other selections all to win or place. It needed Latin Lover to come through in the last race to complete it. Latin Lover won.

William Hill confirmed the payout of £307,464. The punter stayed anonymous. The bookmaker commented that many customers attempt to go through the card at big meetings like Royal Ascot, but few bets are still alive by the final race. This one was.

The £2.50 stake is the detail worth sitting with. Tens of thousands of people place that exact bet at Ascot every year. This one landed every leg.

On 30 March 2024 a Coral punter placed a €20 each-way treble on three horse racing selections at Fairyhouse: Don Chalant at 9/1, Ardera Ru and Mousey Brown. Ardera Ru won the second at 33/1. Then came Mousey Brown, a rank outsider at 50/1, who the punter had taken early before the horse drifted out to starting price.

Mousey Brown found plenty in the closing stages to beat the Willie Mullins-trained favourite Olympic Man near the line. The treble landed. Coral paid €331,452.80. The punter had taken an early price of 50/1 on Mousey Brown, who started at 33/1, meaning the early bet decision alone added tens of thousands to the return.

A north London accountant hit £4.3 million from a £2 spin on Deal or No Deal Bankers Boost Jackpot King at Betfred in October 2024. It was her first time playing slots. She normally placed bets on the horses on a Saturday. Betfred's founder Fred Done confirmed the payout publicly: "This proves beyond doubt that you can win big from the tiniest of stakes at Betfred." She planned to buy a new car, go on holiday and pay off various family members' mortgages. She also said she was carrying on working.

A 54-year-old woman from Manchester won £2.4 million from a £1 bet on a Jackpot King slot at Grosvenorcasinos.com in August 2024. Jackpot King is Blueprint Gaming's progressive network, the same one Michael Clark won £5.4 million on at Betfred the year before. Two UK players, both betting under £2, both hitting seven-figure Jackpot King payouts within eighteen months of each other.

Arron Freeman is a 44-year-old scaffolding business owner from Lowestoft, Suffolk. On the evening of 5 June 2025, after a family night out, his partner suggested he try the casino on Betfred. He created an account, placed a £1.50 bet on Mega Moolah, and the bonus wheel landed on the Mega Jackpot within seconds.

The payout was £11,498,211.89, the biggest in Betfred's 58-year history and more than double Michael Clark's £5.4 million from 2023. Fred Done called him personally to congratulate him and invited him to a Manchester United match as a VIP guest. Freeman, a lifelong United fan and horse racing punter, said he planned to build a homeless shelter with the proceeds of selling his story, and that he would carry on betting on the horses at his usual small stakes.

This is also the most recent confirmed large-scale Mega Moolah win at a UK-licensed casino as of the date of this article.