Gambling Facts

Public voting for the 2010 nominees to the Poker Hall of Fame has now ended, leaving Harrah’s with a list of 10 finalists. Judges will now look over the list of names and make sure each nominee qualifies for induction before giving out the awards.

Induction to the Poker Hall of Fame requires the following:

A player must have played poker against acknowledged top competition; played for high stakes; played consistently well, gaining the respect of peers; stood the test of time; or, for non-players, contributed to the overall growth and success of the game of poker, with indelible positive and lasting results.

The ten finalists are:

• Chris Ferguson
• Scotty Nguyen
• Dan Harrington
• Tom McEvoy
• Jennifer Harman
• Linda Johnson
• Daniel Negreanu
• Phil Ivey
• Erik Seidel
• Barry Greenstein

This year’s Poker Hall of Fame induction ceremony will take place this November at the Rio Las Vegas during WSOP Main Event Nine celebrations. As of 2009, 38 people have been inducted to the Poker Hall of Fame, but only 15 are still living.

A county magistrate in Berkeley County, West Virginia, will now be able to retire after winning a huge $79 million Powerball jackpot.

Magistrate W. Randy Smith, 63 years old, cancelled a scheduled vacation when he heard he’d won the jackpot in favor of his incipient extended holiday thanks to the eight-figure payout. Smith made his intention to step down from the bench, a position he was elected to in 2008, known in a fax to his boss, judicial circuit chief judge David H. Sanders.

Smith served as Berkeley County deputy sheriff for 12 years and as county sheriff for eight before the 2008 election.

In an interview with local media, Smith explained that he didn’t want his employees to be “left holding the bag” and that he would “certainly miss the people that I’ve met and worked with over the years. … I’ve just always enjoyed public service, [and] it has been rewarding to be able to help people.”

Smith said he planned to financially assist some family members with his prize, buy a new car and take a vacation overseas. After taking the “cash option” and figuring for taxes, Smith’s winnings amounted to about $30 million. The winning numbers were 07, 10, 12, 22, 27, and powerball 26.

The magistrate’s last day on the job will be September 6.

It has finally happened – Mega Moolah, one of the best paying slots in online casino history, paid out a massive chunk of its progressive jackpot to a lucky player at Blackjack Ballroom Casino. The identity of the winner has not yet been revealed, but one thing is certain – they are in a good mood!

Mega Moolah is actually a name given to a whole series of video slots developed by Microgaming. Each game one shares the same four-level progressive jackpot. This jackpot is seeded at $1 million, so when it pays, it always pays big.

This week’s $4,170,128 prize paid out on the newest addition to the series: Mega Moolah Summertime. The game has a basic slot theme, with bold and colorful graphics depicting classic slot machine symbols like fruit, bells, and bars. A unique feature of these Mega Moolah series games is that their jackpots are paid out during a randomly-triggered bonus game. This means that the jackpot can pay out on any spin, though higher wagers do increase the chances that the bonus game will launch.

Blackjack Ballroom Casino is part of the Casino Rewards group of online gambling sites. This Microgaming casino is a hotspot for progressive jackpot activity, and this is not the first time that Mega Moolah has paid out big here. Back in April of 2008, Mega Moolah paid more than $5.5 million on a 50 cent bet!

Two big wins on the same slot at the same casino might just be coincidence, but perhaps there’s more to it than that. Either way, the Mega Moolah jackpot is already back up to $1.5 million, and can still pay out on any spin at Blackjack Ballroom Casino.

That’s how this Formula One Drivers’ Championship is going: Another race, another leader, another bunch of storylines. Lewis Hamilton blew past Mark Webber early in the Belgian Grand Prix and hung on to take an easy win. With Hamilton’s victory came his new no. 1 standing on the table, three points ahead of Webber, as his McLaren team completed a two-race comeback.

“This last push in the championship couldn’t have started better for me,” Hamilton stated on the official Formula One website. “This victory was the perfect way to bounce back from Hungary.”

Webber won pole position for the first time in six races and snapped Sebastian Vettel’s four-race streak at the position; however, it did him little good, as he found himself in sixth place going into the first turn. Hamilton had claimed the lead by the end of the second lap, which was followed shortly thereafter by a downpour and the safety car’s appearance.

Still on something of a dangerous track, Vettel collided with Jenson Button in the 16th lap to take the latter out of the race and Vettel out of contention for good.

Hamilton increased his lead when race resumed but his teammate Jenson Button’s championship aspirations suffered a setback when Sebastian Vettel of Red Bull hit him during lap 16.

Interestingly, Hamilton was considered the underdog at the sportsbooks among the big four going into the race at 5/1 odds, while Webber was third on most bookmaker’s tables at 4/1. Vettel was getting 9/4 odds in most shops, while Fernando Alonso, who was never in it in Belgium, had been the favorite.

Odds of 176 million to 1 were beat this weekend in San Luis Obispo County, California, when the Mega Millions jackpot of $133 million was won by … someone. The numbers 4, 10, 26, 31, 32, and 41 came up to produce a single winner of the record-breaking amount, but no one has stepped forward to claim the prize yet.

Though the $133 million is not the largest prize in the lottery ever – that honor goes to a woman from Southern California who took a $266 million jackpot in May – the win is the biggest ever in San Luis Obispo County.

Seller of the lucky ticket, an outlet known as Bottle Liquor and Deli, will receive a nice bonus of $665,000 for the win. The ticket-holder will be given the option of $92.4 million lump sum payment or payments of $5.11 million per year for 26 years.

California lottery spokesman Alex Traverso said that the winner may take up to 365 days to collect but “rarely do we have a jackpot winner [of a prize] this size wait more than a week.”

Another massive progressive jackpot slot game paid out big this week. This time it was at one of the internet’s top bingo sites: Mecca Bingo.

Mecca Bingo is a unique site, because it is actually the online version of a chain physical bingo halls in the UK. The lucky winner, who uses the online alias Dudderbear, was at a Mecca Bingo hall in Leeds when a lucrative welcome bonus led her to sign up online. Since then the mother of two has been regular at Mecca Bingo’s online website.

Dudderbear won the €65,625 prize on a progressive jackpot game called Jungle Madness. This wild video slot is filled with jungle critters like monkeys, snakes, and tigers. Its progressive jackpot prize is paid when five tigers appear in the middle payline.

“I just couldn’t believe it when the slot machine demonstrated that I had won,” explained Dudderbear. “Immediately I rushed to my mother who also was speechless. My mother has an injury so she wasn’t able to go wild with me but her calmness had a positive effect on me. I informed my children while my husband is away for his work. I still need to bring him the good news.”

“I plan to spend the money on a new car and on a nice vacation. I already know which car I would love to buy! Surely my colleagues will have more options for spending the windfall.”

When Frank Sullivan hit the Tri-State Megabucks lottery sponsored by Maine, Vermont and New Hampshire state governments for $12.5 million, he knew exactly what to do – no wonder, as twice before family members have struck it rich.

The $12.5 million represents the largest single prize ever rewarded in the Tri-State Megabucks lottery since its establishment in 1985. The bad (though certainly manageable) news for Sullivan is that, since he’s a Vermont native who bought the ticket across the border in New Hampshire, he’ll be paying taxes on his winnings in two states. In taking the “lump sum” option, Sullivan will be banking over $5 million.

According to local media, one of the very first things the 52-year-old did – even before stepping up to claim his prize – was to give two weeks’ notice at his job at a local electronics supplier. He now reportedly carries around lip balm “for people that want money – They’ve gotta kiss up a little bit more” and a black book “for the marriage proposals.”

The store in Gilman where Sullivan bought the ticket will also be receiving $30,000 for selling the lucky jackpot winner.

NECN Online also reports that Sullivan had purchased tickets for last night’s Megabucks drawing – presumably he didn’t win that one, however…

The scene of the crime is the Sho-Ka-Wah Casino in Hopeland, California. The perpetrators are eight locals, aged 38 to 47, including former casino employee Joan Elizabeth Pickron. The crime, according to state Attorney General’s Office spokeswoman Kate Gibbs, is “manipulating jackpot slot machines to cheat the casino.”

This group of gamblers have been hacking the casino’s slot machines for more than three years. No details have been release about how the group rigged the jackpot slots, but their efforts earned them a total of more than $100,000 in ill-gotten wins.

The California Department of Justice’s Bureau of Gambling Control has been investigating the situation since late 2008, and arrests were finally made last week. All eight offenders now face charges of embezzlement and grand theft.

Normally, the security of casino slot machines is quite strong, so the fact that these gamblers were able to manipulate the machines is surprising. Online jackpot slots are even more secure, since all games are monitored electronically. Fortunately, this sort of crime is rare, and even when something like this does happen, it has little effect on other patrons of the casino where the crime takes place.

As though it weren’t enough for one lucky Ladbrokes Casino player to take £75,000 on a single spin, as though it weren’t enough that he did it on a free spin earned through a promotion, the big winner also pulled off the feat on a Friday the 13th.

Ladbrokes Online Casino just released a few details – though not the identity – about their £75,000 winner, and it’s a story about beating the odds all the way. The London resident first won in the casino’s “Single Day Prize Draw Promotion,” which offered randomly-awarded £10, £25 and £50 prizes for play on the Mega Moolah Isis progressive slot.

Even stranger about this story is that just last month a Ladbrokes customer hit Mega Moolah Isis for over £88,000 – and that player was also from London! With such a stacking up of coincidences, it’s no wonder magical Friday the 13th paid off in strange ways, one supposes.

A representative for Ladbrokes marketing said that “A £75,000 win on Friday the 13th is amazing. It just goes to show that this day can be lucky for some! We have had so many big winners in the last few months that 2010 is starting to look very good for our customers.”

With a bit more than a trace of worry, Ladbrokes also reminds that the progressive jackpot on the record-breaking Mega Moolah progressive slot has just passed £4 million.

Bet365 Games member “Vassilis T” hit the jackpot last week on a fantastically unique video slot called Alice in Wonderland. The lucky winner hit the game’s progressive jackpot, pulling in a prize of £107,808.

Alice in Wonderland slot is obviously based on the classic tale by Lewis Carroll. It is a 20 line, five reel video slot packed with special features. The most lucrative feature, as Vassilis can attest to, is its progressive jackpot. This big prize is paid out during the Tea Party Bonus Round, in which Alice, the March Hare, the Dormouse and the Mad Hatter sit around drinking tea while players win big prizes.

The game’s graphics are cartoonish, and they are much brighter and more playful than the visuals that came out in Tim Burton’s visit to Wonderland in his recent film starring Johnny Depp. This slot is light-hearted and fun, but as this recent progressive win shows, it still packs a powerful punch.

Vassilis T won this jackpot at Bet365 Games, a Playtech powered site offering more than 150 top casino games, including several other popular progressive jackpot slots like Stravaganza and Gold Rally. Beach Life is currently offering the biggest prize, with nearly $1.5 million just waiting to be won.