A player registered with 32Red Casino has hit the headlines after winning a whopping €17.5 million jackpot on Microgaming’s WowPot jackpot slot.
The lucky casino player struck the gigantic win on Wednesday, April 14, 2021, becoming the first registered user to trigger the Mega win on the progressive jackpot slot.
According to Microgaming, the anonymous user, who is based in the United Kingdom, won the top Book Of Atem: WowPot jackpot of €17,529,047.11 (Around £15,183,085.96) after placing a £0.80 bet on the slot.
The unnamed player is now one of the 93 EUR millionaires created via Microgaming’s progressive jackpot network, which has paid well over €1.3 billion across its connected games and jackpots.
The win is also the largest WowPot win of all time and the third-largest in Microgaming’s progressive jackpot history, surpassing the €1,123,513.15 win triggered back in March 2021 on Microgaming’s Sisters Of Oz: WowPot slot.
John Coleman, the CEO at Microgaming, said in a statement: “What a phenomenal win – our third largest ever and the first Mega to drop on WowPot! Congratulations to the winning player, and of course to 32Red and Kindred Group, who have been such brilliant partners of Microgaming over the years.
“I’d also like to thank All41 Studios for developing Book Of Atem: WowPot, and Alchemy Gaming for playing a key role in building our WowPot jackpot. Here’s to many more wins together.”
Neil Banbury, the UK General Manager at Kindred Group, added: “We’re overjoyed for our player, first and foremost. Congrats on this incredible win! Well done to Microgaming, too, for delivering the industry’s leading range of progressive jackpot games.
“WowPot comes with a cracking set of games and is now on par with Mega Moolah as one of the big hitters.”
Book Of Atem: WowPot launched back in September 2020. The Egyptian-themed slot was created by All41 Studios exclusively for Microgaming and is the second game to feature a four-tiered jackpot service. Since its release, a total of €23 million has been awarded through the game via all jackpot tiers.
The WowPot series of games first launched in February 2021 with Alchemy Gaming’s Wheel Of Wishes, designed again exclusively for Microgaming. The slot featured a top prize pool of €2 million. WowPot has since launched with other games, including Sherlock & Moriarty WowPot by Just For The Win and Queen Of Alexandria WowPot by Neon Valley Studios.
The WowPot jackpot series follows on the heels of Microgaming’s other successful jackpot series, Mega Moolah. Following the most recent win, the WowPot jackpot network has returned to its starting prize pool of €2 million, while Mega Moolah has become the industry’s largest jackpot at almost €18 million.
Also this week, leading gambling charity GambleAware has called for two new research programmes to look into the effects of problem gambling amongst minority communities and women.
According to GambleAware, the two programmes will each have £250,000 in funding and will build evidence of the lived experience of gambling harms amongst diverse and marginalised communities.
The charity has said it is seeking bids from consortia and multidisciplinary teams that can include research agencies, academics, and institutions. The charity anticipates that the winning bids will take a mixed-methods, multidisciplinary and multi-sector approach to achieve the aims of each research programme.
As stated by the charity, the research obtained from the programmes will then be used to inform GambleAware’s commissioning practices, ensuring that its services and interventions are accessible and tailored to the needs of women and minority communities.
A statement from GambleAware reads: “In Great Britain, there is limited research available on gambling and the lived experience of minority communities and women.
“However, existing evidence suggests the burdens of gambling harms are higher amongst minority ethnic communities and that these communities are less likely to access specialist gambling services compared with white communities.”
It continues: “There is also evidence that indicates participation in gambling and the rate of women who experience gambling disorder is increasing more quickly than amongst men, but reasons for this are unclear.
“Women and people from minority communities are also more likely to be an ‘affected other’ – someone who reports being negatively affected by someone else’s gambling behaviour.”
The news comes as the UK Government continues its review of the Gambling Act 2005 and several weeks after charity YGAM (Young Gamblers and Gamblers Education Trust) published its submission to the review, calling for more education on gambling and for a mandatory levy on the industry.
Finally, leading game developer Pragmatic Play has struck a content agreement with LuckyDays. Under the brand new partnership, Pragmatic Play has launched its collection of live casino games with the website.
The games available include Mega Roulette, Mega Wheel, as well as numerous live casino table games available in a variety of languages. All of the live casino games are streamed directly from Pragmatic Play’s state-of-the-art studio in Romania and utilises the latest 4K video technology and audio system with professionally trained dealers.
The new content agreement expands Pragmatic Play’s live offering across Europe and comes after the development studio struck similar deals with operators such as Betway, GGPoker, and the Kindred Group.
Lena Yasir, the Vice President of Malta Operations at Pragmatic Play, said in a statement: “We’re delighted to be taking our growing live casino offering live with LuckyDays. Expanding our reach in Europe has been a priority for us, so we couldn’t be happier to agree [to] this deal.”
Josh Logan, the Casino Director at LuckyDays, added: “Live casino is a key product and with Pragmatic Play’s quality and diversity of tables they are a given to partner with in this vertical. We are thrilled to be able to offer their product to our customers.”
