Mega Moolah Mega Jackpot Pays $16.5M

Progressive Press: Mega Moolah 5 Reel Drive pays $16.5 million.

Word is out in the ‘Progressive Press’, Microgaming’s Mega Moolah Mega Jackpot has been struck again! This time, the lucky winner is cashing out for a colossal $167.5 million. And it wasn’t the signature lion of the African Sahara that awarded it, but the grease monkeys of the highway truck stop.

If that metaphor left you scratching your beard, I’m referring to the Mega Moolah progressive slot known as 5 Reel Drive. Designed to mimic the immensely popular Smokey and the Bandit films of the 1980s, it features a racing flag, a Thunderbird, a big rig, and a selection of truck stop dining fare. And, of course, it carries the payout potential of the world famous ‘Millionaire Maker’ jackpot.

Mega Moolah 5 Reel Drive Pays $16.5M

Steaming hot off the presses, the progressive jackpot was just struck less than 24 hours ago. That means two things. First of all, there’s one very lucky player out there that’s probably still having a hard time getting any sleep due to all the excitement, Second, we have no idea who that person is, where they are from, or what online / mobile casino they were spinning the reels at when it happened. It’s simply all too new for that information to come forth yet.

What we do know is that the progressive jackpot had risen to a staggering $16,495,060 before the fateful event happened. To hit this high-octane progressive, all the fortunate slot fan had to do was play the game. As with the original Safari themed edition, the Mega Moolah Wheel Bonus Game is triggered entirely at random. It can happen after any spin, win or lose, so long as the game is being played for real money. The larger the bet, the higher the chance to trigger the bonus, but any bet size can trigger the feature.

When the Wheel Bonus activates, the player is guaranteed to win one of the progressive jackpots – the Mini, Minor, Major or Mega. Those smaller prizes pay out all the time, but the Mega only strikes, on average, once every eight and a half weeks. When it does, it usually pays out an average of $5.89 million. For today’s lucky new millionaire, it took 14 weeks to strike the big prize, paying nearly 3x more than the average.

The $16.5 million payout, awarded on Sunday, April 5, 2020, marks the 63rd Mega Jackpot strike on record, and the third largest in the progressive network’s 14 year history. The highest jackpot of all was awarded in September of 2018 to an anonymous member of the Grand Mondial Casino, who scored a staggering €18,915,721 (then US-$21.99 million).

Just 17 weeks later, the second largest payout went to a fellow Canadian who was playing the famous Mega Moolah online slot machine at Zodiac Casino in January 2019. That win was the monumental door-buster that broke the proverbial flood gates, sending Microgaming’s gross jackpot payouts on the Mega Moolah progressive network over the €1 billion mark. Oddly enough, only about one-third of all those payouts came from the Mega jackpot. The rest are combined strikes on the Mini, Minor and Major, which goes to show just how often they strike, and how valuable those smaller wins really are.