Lucky Traveler Hits Massive $3.3M ‘Wheel of Fortune’ Jackpot at Las Vegas Airport

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.

The Wheel of Fortune progressive slots at the airport are tied to the same IGT statewide progressive pool found at megaresorts like Caesars Palace, meaning the mathematical probability of hitting the top symbols on a single max-bet spin is identical.

While IGT does not publicly disclose exact figures, industry estimates generally place the odds of hitting that top progressive jackpot anywhere between 1-in-5-million and 1-in-15-million per spin.

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.

Not the First

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.”