A German woman, who worked as a cleaning lady, recently set a new world record when she won the world’s largest online gambling jackpot with Lottoland. She won a total of €90 million, or $103 million. This is, by far, the biggest online gambling payout in history, and this has been confirmed by the Guinness Book of World Records. The win actually took place at the beginning of June 2018, but it took some time for Guinness World Records to confirm it was the largest in history.
Lottoland Win Smashes Old Record
The lucky winner has been identified only as Christina. She placed a bet on the Eurojackpot draw through a secondary lottery, known as Lottoland, and guessed all the winning numbers correctly. With a secondary lottery, players don’t buy tickets for the lottery, but rather bet on the outcome of other lotteries. Following her win, Christina immediately left her cleaning job and is now planning on travelling around the world.
The German taxman will take just 5% of the win, which equals $5.2 million. As mentioned, the win has been confirmed as the largest online gambling win of all time by the Guinness Book of World Records. We can’t see this record being broken anytime soon. It smashed the previous record holder, which was a $17 million jackpot win with Microgaming’s Mega Moolah progressive slot. This win happened back in 2015.
How Lottoland Does it
Online casinos will have a tough time matching the jackpots offered by the likes of Lottoland. The idea of secondary lotteries has come under fire in some countries recently. This is especially true in Australia, where some politicians are trying to ban the practice. Many people wonder how secondary lotteries like Lottoland are able to offer such big jackpots, when they do not have the player liquidity of a traditional lotto.
It actually happens thanks to an insurance model known as ‘insurance-linked securities’. Typically, this type of insurance is used by countries to protect against massive, unexpected expenses like natural disasters. However, Lottoland uses this insurance to protect itself against huge jackpot wins like this one.
Dave Cooper is the Senior Content Manager at CasinoUS.com, leading the creation of informative and engaging content for casino players. Fueled by a fascination for the intricate world of online gaming and a talent for storytelling, Dave holds a journalism degree from UNLV, a perfect launchpad for his illustrious career.