Traveler Hits $3.3M Slot Jackpot at Las Vegas Airport

• A man on a layover at Las Vegas Airport won a $3.3 million jackpot on a Wheel of Fortune slot machine
• Airport slots offer lower payback percentages than casino machines
• However, the chance of any one max bet hitting a top progressive jackpot is the same

A traveler at Harry Reid International Airport turned a routine layover into a multimillion dollar windfall over the weekend, hitting a $3.3 million progressive slot machine jackpot, airport officials announced.

The winner — identified only as “Anthony” by slot manufacturer IGT – placed a $10 max bet on a Wheel of Fortune progressive machine at the airport’s C gates, which netted him $3,307,158.11.

Wheel of Fortune progressives at the airport are tied to the same IGT statewide progressive pool as those at Caesars Palace — meaning that the probability of hitting the top jackpot symbols on any single max-bet spin is the same. (Industry estimates generally place the odds of hitting the top Wheel of Fortune progressive in the range of 1 in several million to 1 in 15 million per spin when playing max bet, though IGT does not publicly disclose the exact figures.)

However, playing them at the gates is still a worse bet in practice because airport slots have lower Return-to-Player percentages than the same machines on the Las Vegas Strip – typically in the 80–85% range compared to 88–91% on the Strip. (They can do this because players at the airport are a captive audience. All airport slots have been operated by the same company, Michael Gaughan’s Airport Slot Concession, since 1985.)

As a result, players get fewer total spins for the same amount of money — and therefore fewer chances to hit the progressive jackpot.

Sometimes, however, the stars and the jackpot icons line up.

In fact, Harry Reid International has produced several notable wins in recent years. In May 2025, a traveler hit $1.8 million on a Wheel of Fortune machine in the D Gates. Other recent jackpots include $1.4 million and $1.3 million wins in 2023 and 2024, respectively.

This jackpot isn’t even the biggest ever hit at the Las Vegas Airport. In 2005, a player won nearly $4 million on a 25 cent Wheel of Fortune spin. And the largest airport jackpot ever in the U.S. was in 2010, when a Megabucks machine hit for $10.4 million at Reno Tahoe International.

Somewhere between 200 and 300 progressive machines are distributed across Harry Reid’s A, B, C, D, and E gates — about 17% of the more than 1,400 slot machines

While “Anthony” will face a mandatory 24% federal tax withholding, Nevada imposes no state income tax, meaning the remainder of the jackpot is his to keep.

Airport officials congratulated Anthony publicly, writing: “Thanks for making LAS part of your lucky journey.”