Megabucks slot machines were placed in Las Vegas casinos for the first time in the mid-1990s. The first progressive jackpot on the slot machine was hit at the Gold Coast Casino on October 18, 1995. Over the years, the brand has had 46 progressive wins. In 2000, Cynthia Jay Brennan, a cocktail waitress, became one of the luckiest people in the world when she won the largest Megabucks jackpot in history at the time. She was playing a state-wide.

• Megabucks Slot Machine Winners
• Megabucks Slot Machine Locations
• Megabucks Slot Machine Current Value

For gamblers who love spinning the slots, no machine holds a greater allure than Megabucks.

A product of casino game manufacturer International Game Technology (IGT), the Megabucks slot was introduced back in 1986. The game itself is relatively simple when compared to modern video slots, as Megabucks offers just three reels and a single payline to work with.

But that payline is sweeter than any other slot in the world, thanks to a massive progressive jackpot of $10 million. As the world’s first wide area progressive slot network, Megabucks machines all over Nevada are linked together to create the enormous eight-figure jackpot.

And at $3 per spin, players grinding Megabucks machines in Lake Tahoe, Reno, and Las Vegas casinos, and just overall across the Silver State can easily cause the jackpot to build into the $20 to $40 million range.

The odds of landing just one “Megabucks Eagle” symbol needed to claim that ridiculous reward stand at 1 in 368. Thus, finding three of the key symbols lined up perfectly on the reels requires beating odds of 1 in 49,836,032 or (1/368)³.

With such astronomical odds against the player, years can go by without anybody winning the Megabucks jackpot.

To get an idea of how unlikely a Megabucks jackpot payout really is, and how lucrative they can be for the lucky winners, checkout the slot’s performance over the last decade:

Megabucks Jackpot History (2010 – 2019)

Yep, you read that right. Over the course of nearly 10 years, only 14 Megabucks jackpots have ever been hit, which is why the story of Elmer Sherwin is so wildly unbelievable…

At the age of 76, the retired Sherwin landed a $4.6 million jackpot from Megabucks back in 1989. (The $10 million seed amount started in 2005.) That alone made Sherwin one of the gambling industry’s rarities, a slot player who overcame the odds to win what was the largest jackpot in Las Vegas history at the time.

But 16 years later, Sherwin etched his name into the pantheon of gambling gods by winning a second Megabucks jackpot, this time for a whopping $21.1 million. Let’s take a look at the true Las Vegas legend of Elmer Sherwin’s double dip on the Megabucks machine.

Sherwin Wins Seven Figures on the Mirage’s Opening Day

The day was November 22, 1989 and Las Vegas locals were celebrating the grand opening of the Mirage, the city’s latest casino built along the Strip.

One of those locals was Elmer Sherwin, who visited the glittering new venue along with his ex-wife Florence. At the time, Megabucks machines offered a progressive jackpot that seeded at $1 million and climbed from there, so Sherwin and his fellow slot spinners were chasing a $4.6 million grand prize.

After about 90 minutes of play, during which Sherwin spent $80 of his own money before borrowing $20 more from Florence, the reels whirled and clicked into place just perfectly. With three of the coveted “Megabucks Eagle” symbols lined up along the payline, Sherwin turned his $3 wager into a $4,653,697.80 score.

According to the myth, IGT programs its Megabucks machines to pay out at a higher rate when a casino first opens, hoping to hook players into coming back for more.

But Boris Hallerbach—who works as a product manager for MegaJackpots, a division of IGT—told the Las Vegas Review-Journal in 2009, that’s just not how random number generators (RNGs) really work:

“Unfortunately, no. I hate to be the spoiler. There is no correlation between Megabucks hitting and the opening of a casino.”

Indeed, as the aforementioned report makes clear, none of the dozen casinos to open their doors since Sherwin’s big win have produced a Megabucks jackpot on opening day.

As a retiree, and a single one to boot, Sherwin had all the time and money he’d ever need to travel the world. But as he told local media outlets at the time, Sherwin’s experience serving in World War II had already taken him abroad, so he was content to stick around Sin City to try for a seemingly impossible feat—a second jackpot spin on Megabucks.

It would take him 16 years, but Sherwin would do just that in 2005, during a trip to the Cannery Casino and Hotel.

Lightning Strikes Twice for a Las Vegas Legend

At 92 years young, Sherwin found himself spinning away on a Megabucks machine inside the off-Strip casino known as Cannery.

He was chasing his “white whale” of sorts, hoping to become the first ever two-time Megabucks winner. But while Captain Ahab infamously went down with the ship chasing his own Moby Dick, Sherwin managed to capture one of the most elusive beasts in casino gambling history.

Once again, the reels revolved around and around, before settling in an arrangement instantly familiar to Sherwin—three “Megabucks Eagle” symbols in a row. Just like that, the veteran and proud patriarch laid claim to a staggering jackpot payout of $21,147,947.

In a press release issued by IGT, Sherwin celebrated his crowning achievement after becoming the undisputed king of Megabucks slot jackpots:

“I’m glad I finally hit; I’ve been trying to do it again. I’m gonna try for a third win on Megabucks, but I may try the Wheel of Fortune slot, too.”

When the news broke, Las Vegas Advisor publisher Anthony Curtis told local media outlets that the chances of a repeat win on Megabucks bordered on the immeasurable:

“It’s absurd. The odds of winning are on the order of billions if not trillions to one. It’s crazy.”

I’m no math whiz by any means, but when you multiply the 1 in 49,836,032 odds on hitting one Megabucks jackpot by 49,836,032, the answer basically broke my calculator—1 in 2,483,630,085,505,024.

That’s a probability of 1 in 2.4 quadrillion, odds which are simply unfathomable to most people. After pocketing another life-changing jackpot, Sherwin paid it forward by making contributions to charities assisting New Orleans after the city was ravaged by Hurricane Katrina.

Sherwin continued playing slot machines in Las Vegas for the next two years, before passing away at the age of 94.

Conclusion

Millions of players will spin the Megabucks slot machine regularly for their entire lives without ever landing the topline jackpot. Only 22 jackpots have been awarded since the $10 million seed began in 2005.

With that in mind, trying to wrap your mind around Sherwin’s second jackpot score is essentially impossible. Las Vegas is a city built on legends, but none can compare with the epic Megabucks run enjoyed by the singularly unique Elmer Sherwin.

Megabucks are slots with progressive jackpots, combined into a single network that covers casinos in several American states. The owner and operator of this network is International Game Technology, better known by its abbreviated name IGT.

Megabucks slot is considered as an alternative to state lotteries and enjoys incredible popularity among Americans. Actually, there is an opinion that IGT specifically released it to create a lottery competition. Since the beginning of the eighties in the twentieth century, when the slot was launched for the first time, this slot made dozens of players millionaires.

Thanks to the skillfully organized advertising company, every Megabucks jackpot, when it reaches a considerable size, causes a real excitement among the gambling public. And every hit of the progressive jackpot is widely covered in the media, attracting even more casino visitors to the slot. No other slot in the world is overgrown with so many incredible myths, rumors, and legends. But with all this, there are a lot of gambling experts and just experienced players who consider Megabucks a hideous slot that absolutely does not deserve so much attention. So, who is right: fans or opponents of this slot?

Where to Play the Megabucks Slot

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How to Play Megabucks

The classic version of the Megabucks slot from IGT is a 3-reel slot machine with the only one payline. In order to qualify for a progressive jackpot, the player must definitely bet three dollars. There are a lot of stories (both true and fictitious) about casino customers, who had the jackpot combination, but they did not receive any jackpot because of a bet less than three dollars.

The progressive jackpot is not completely nullified when a lucky winner gets it but starts to grow from a certain amount. In recent years, this fixed amount is $10,000,000. There are persistent rumors that soon this initial sum of the jackpot should increase by one million.

Megabucks Slot Odds

Strange as it may seem, there is no official information about the probability of winning the Megabucks jackpot. Some casinos say that the player has one chance out of 50 million, while others claim that this is one chance of 17 million. Whatever it was, when the sum of the jackpot is large enough, fans of this slot are ready to fly thousands of kilometers to try their luck.

What do Lady Luck’s favorites have from this slot? Do they get all that huge amount of money that is advertised? When you win a jackpot, events can unfold as follows. First of all, the lucky guy will receive a check for $1,400,000. Then the winner is given two or three months to decide how he wants to get his winnings. There are two options: the amount is divided into annual payments, which will be transferred to the player within twenty-five years, or he can get the winnings immediately at a time, but at a rate of 60% of the jackpot.

That is, having won ten million, the winner can receive in the second variant only six million, but at once and with one payment. After receiving the win, he still has to pay taxes. Unsurprisingly, almost all holders of Megabucks jackpots prefer to receive their winnings in the form of annual payments.

However, in this case, they also have to pay taxes, the Internal Revenue Service of the United States (IRS) very strictly follows this. Subtract from the total amount of the jackpot another 40%, because such winnings are taxed at the maximum rate. So, the next time you hear that someone has won ten million in Megabucks and immediately took all the money, you know that the lucky guy got a little over three and a half million at his disposal.

The Curse of the Megabucks Jackpot

As already mentioned above, there are a lot of urban legends about the Megabucks slot and its jackpot, mostly of a gloomy nature. For the most part, they describe the tragic fate of players who managed to win a huge jackpot. It is believed that almost all the lucky people either perish or suffer numerous woes. The cause of their numerous misfortunes is the so-called Curse of the Megabucks slot.

Of course, in these stories, there is much more fiction than the truth. However, there is no smoke without fire — some winners, really, seriously suffered after they won the jackpot. In particular, the further life of the waitress Cynthia J. Brennan, who won $34.9 million in 2000, was sad. A month and a half after the win, Cynthia and her sister were hit by a drunk driver. The sister died on the spot, and Cynthia was forever paralyzed. The guy who drove the car in a state of intoxication was imprisoned for twenty-eight years.

But the rumors about the curse of Megabucks spread even before the year 2000. Simply, this accident was widely covered in the press and made people remember about other similar events, which at that time did not become so resonant. In 2003, many media published a story about a 25-year-old player who became the owner of the Megabucks jackpot and either died from a drug overdose in a casino hotel or was killed in a street shootout. IGT companies had to work hard to convince the public of the falsity of these statements.

There are also a lot of rumors about underage players and employees of different casinos who won the Megabucks jackpot but could not get it due to existing rules. But none of these rumors received documentary evidence.

Many experts in the field of gambling suggest that ITG recently made relevant changes to the Megabucks system, which makes the jackpot play less often, but with larger amounts. Although officially the company claims that nothing of the sort has happened, this opinion remains very popular.

Where Could You Play Megabucks?

Most fans of slot machines and large jackpots are not afraid of the curse of Megabucks and are willing to play in this slot. You can find this slot in almost all real casinos on the Las Vegas Strip, as well as in other establishments in Nevada, California, New Jersey, Mississippi, and some Indian reservations. Each state has its own separate network of Megabucks slots, but the biggest progressive jackpots are expected in Nevada. In other states, jackpots are much smaller.

Megabucks Slot Machine Winners

Why do Experts Consider Megabucks a Bad Slot?

Experts do not believe in the curse of the Megabucks slot, but this does not stop them from considering this gambling machine not worthy of attention. The fact is that this slot is very unprofitable for the player. Firstly, it has an extremely high percentage of the casino advantage, which reaches 10-15% (for comparison, many slots in the Las Vegas casino are limited to 2-3%). Secondly, the procedure for paying a jackpot is extremely inconvenient. The winner either loses 40% of the amount or gets it in parts for 25 years. But the progressive jackpots of most other slots are paid immediately and in full.

Megabucks Slot Machine Locations

All this suggests that Megabucks is a mediocre slot, which gained its popularity only thanks to record payments and a masterly organized PR campaign.

Megabucks Slot Machine Current Value

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