The Biggest Roulette Wins in Recorded History

Roulette is one of the most popular table games and preferred by many players. It is a common misconception that roulette games do not pay as much as the best BTC slots. In fact, however, it’s possible to win extremely high payouts in roulette games too. Have you ever wondered what the highest roulette winnings are? Below, you will find detailed information about the highest roulette earnings ever achieved. Who knows, it might inspire you to give the game of roulette a go and perhaps you could be the player which lands the biggest roulette wins on record!

The Roulette Winnings Hall of Fame

Charles Wells

Have you ever heard of the term “breaking the bank”? If a casino does not have enough money to pay the players, a black veil is placed over all game tables. This is called breaking the bank, and it means the casino went bankrupt for the night. We owe this term to a gambler named Charles Wells. In 1891, Wells visited the famous Monte Carlo casino and started playing roulette. He played all night – in the morning, he managed to win a total of 2,000,000 Francs. This award corresponds to about $50 million today. That night, Monte Carlo casino paid all the money in its vault to Wells and couldn’t pay any other players. This was the only time the Monte Carlo casino could not pay and had to be closed during its history.

Well, what was Wells’ secret? Charles Wells did not use any “system”, but he discovered how to cheat at roulette. In those years, the roulette wheels were produced by the carpenters, and no wheel was the same. In other words, there were different physical defects on each wheel. Charles Wells had learned how to use these defects to make an accurate estimate of where the ball would land. He was so good at this that he could make an accurate prediction in 23 of every 30 spins. The Monte Carlo casino realized what he was doing and went to court to get the money back. But what Wells did was not a real cheat – he only learned how to beat the casino. The Monte Carlo casino lost the case. Unfortunately, this story didn’t end well for Wells: He lost all the money he earned and died bankrupt in 1922.

Ashley Revell

In 2004, Ashley Revell entered a Las Vegas casino, played roulette, and earned $270,000. This may not seem like a high amount, but the story is quite interesting: Ashley Wells began selling everything he had. He sold his house, his car, his stuff, even his clothes. In the end, he earned $135,000: That’s all he had in life. He went to Las Vegas with the money and put it all for “Red 7”. If he lost, he would have lost everything.

But he won. In fact, he won twice the bet amount ($270,000). He used this money as capital to build a poker network site. He now has a pretty good income and a story that can be used in Hollywood movies.

Mike Ashley

The name Mike Ashley may sound familiar: He is already a billionaire and the owner of Newcastle United sports team. Apparently, he is also a successful gambler because he managed to win
£1,300,000 by playing roulette. Ashley did this by playing a “complete bet” in a private casino in Mayfair. Complete bet is a special type of inside bet: The player puts money on all the options that include the number 17. The payout ratio is low, but if you play with high figures, this is not a problem. Mike Ashley placed £480,000 on a complete bet. He won £1.3 million. Since he is already a billionaire, we don’t think this winning means much to him – he has probably spent it all on another roulette game.

Chris Boyd  

The story of Chris Boyd is similar to Ashley Revell.  He did not sell any of his stuff but collected $220,000 in three years. Just like Revell, he went to a Las Vegas casino and wanted to put all of his money on a single option: Red. This was a problem because if you are not a VIP player, the betting limit is $100,000 in all Las Vegas casinos. In the end, a casino named “Horseshoe Club” decided to accept this bet. They even decided to cover the “00” on the wheel. If you are not familiar, this means they basically turned an American roulette into a European one – the odds in European roulette are higher. Chris Boyd put $220,000 to red, spun the wheel, and won $440,000. (The payout of red 7 black bet is 1:1.) He left Las Vegas and as far as we know, never played roulette again. So he is the “one-hit wonder boy” of roulette.  

Anonymous Europeans

They are really anonymous – we do not know their names because of the court order. Parties agreed on not to disclose any names, and agreed to close the case: We still not know all of the details. What we know are these: In 2004, a group of European gamblers, who were academicians, in reality, went to Ritz Casino in the United Kingdom. They were really academicians, in computer programming and analytics. They won at roulette. In fact, they won over £ 1,000,000. However, Ritz Casino refused to pay and claimed that they cheated. They were, indeed, cheating: Turns out they were using portable laser scanners to scan the wheel and calculate where the ball will land. Each player was wearing a device that can communicate with an outside computer to do the calculations. They were using their mobile phone’s IR (infrared) feature to scan the wheel. The parties agreed outside the court, so we are not sure they got paid at the end or not.

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