Aisar 2

A Canadian man watched his online casino balance climb past CA$1.3 MILLION after hitting a streak of jackpots. The casino sent him around 15 congratulatory emails saying his winnings would be confirmed within 72 hours. Then he tried to withdraw the money. His balance was wiped to zero. The casino blamed a technical glitch. He says they still haven't shown him proof. – James Kotylak was a 42-year-old from Alberta, Canada, and a VIP Gold member at 888 Casino. He had been playing on the platform for around three years. – On March 16, 2026, he was playing a slot game called Floating Dragon: Year of the Snake, developed by Pragmatic Play. – The game had a Jackpot Drop feature. He began hitting a series of jackpots, including bronze, sapphire, silver and gold prizes, followed by multiple diamond-level jackpots worth around CA$85,000 each. – His balance kept climbing. It eventually passed CA$1.3 MILLION, roughly US$940,000. – 888 Casino sent him around 15 congratulatory emails. They told him the winnings would be confirmed within 72 hours. – A prediction market doesn't work that way. You trade against another person at a price you both agreed to, and your payout comes from the person on the other side, not a house that wrote the game – He continued playing and lost some of the balance. But when he tried to withdraw what remained, the withdrawal failed and his account balance was reduced to zero. – The casino initially blamed a rejected bank transaction. Kotylak said his bank denied that explanation. – The explanation later shifted to a technical glitch. Kotylak said the company asked him to trust them but had not provided evidence showing why his jackpots were invalid. – Other customers on platforms owned by Evoke, the parent company of 888 Casino and William Hill, also reported problems with Jackpot Drop winnings around the same period. – Kotylak began pursuing the matter and considering legal action alongside other affected players. – The dispute became part of a wider controversy over Jackpot Drop, after Evoke acknowledged a technical issue that had credited some customer accounts with incorrect winnings. – But Kotylak disputed the company's handling of his case. He wanted evidence showing exactly what had gone wrong and why the money in his account had been removed. – As of the reporting available, his dispute had not been resolved through a confirmed final court judgment ordering 888 to pay him the full amount. A Canadian man watched his casino balance climb past CA$1.3 MILLION, received around 15 congratulatory emails, then saw the money disappear when he tried to withdraw it. The casino blamed a glitch. He says they still haven't proven it.

A gardener’s iPad showed she’d won £1.1 MILLION on a Paddy Power game. They paid her £20,265.14 and said the screen was wrong. Four and a half years later, a High Court judge ruled the screen was right. – Corrine Durber was a gardener from Gloucestershire, England. – In October 2020 she was playing a Paddy Power game called Wild Hatter on her iPad. It combines a fruit machine with a wheel-of-fortune bonus round. – She won the first stage, moved to the next level, and spun the jackpot wheel. – The screen showed the “Monster Jackpot” of £1,097,132.71. – She took a screenshot. – Paddy Power paid her £20,265.14, the amount for the smaller “Daily Jackpot,” and gave no explanation. – She complained to the company the same evening. – Paddy Power said a programming error had made the screen show the wrong prize. Its random number generator, it said, had only selected the Daily Jackpot. – Its terms and conditions said the generator’s result was final and that it wasn’t liable for system errors. – That was the whole problem. Paddy Power wrote the game, ran the software that picked the result, wrote the rules, and then decided which number counted when its own screen disagreed with its own system. – A prediction market doesn’t work that way. There’s no house writing the game or choosing the result afterward. – You trade against another person at a price someone actually agreed to, and your payout comes from the person on the other side, not from a company deciding the number on your screen was a mistake. – She sued for breach of contract. – In March 2025, Mr Justice Ritchie granted summary judgment in her favor, so there was no full trial. – His 62-page ruling found that human error in mapping the game’s software caused the on-screen result to differ from the generator’s. It affected 14 plays over 48 days. – The judge said customers expect the house to pay if they bet on number 13 and the ball lands on 13. – He found the terms unfair and unenforceable under the Consumer Rights Act 2015, and not part of her contract. – He also said it was unfair to place all the risk on the consumer for the company’s own errors, negligence, and inadequate testing. – She said the judge confirmed she had “fairly and squarely won £1 MILLION.” – She said Paddy Power had “tried their very best to deny me my rightful winnings.” – She said she would never bet with them again. A gardener hit £1.1 MILLION on her iPad, was paid £20,000 instead, and spent four and a half years in court proving the screen was right.

A professional sports bettor was leading a $2.5 MILLION DraftKings contest by $24,000 with one bet left to make. His winnings from the previous game didn't load into his account in time. He watched the clock run out, refreshing his screen, and lost his shot at $1 MILLION to a four-minute glitch. – Rufus Peabody, a professional sports bettor competing under the username Opti5624, was the Day 3 leader in DraftKings' first-ever Sports Betting National Championship, held live in Jersey City in January 2019. – He built his bankroll to roughly $82,000 after an all-in bet on the Patriots, putting him about $24,000 ahead heading into the tournament's final game. – His plan was to immediately wager everything on the Saints-Eagles game, the contest's last event of the weekend. – His Patriots winnings weren't credited to his account before the Saints-Eagles game kicked off, just four minutes after the first game ended. – Sports betting is regulated state by state, with no single federal body overseeing it – The same handful of companies run near-identical products in nearly 40 states, and the industry has for years pushed to keep it that way rather than answer to one national regulator. – Peabody spent those four minutes refreshing his browser, watching his balance sit near zero while the clock ran out. – No further bets were allowed once the final game began. He never got the chance to place his wager at all. – The $1 MILLION top prize instead went to a New Jersey poker dealer, Randy Lee, who got his final bet in on time. – Peabody finished third, taking home $330,000, real money, but nowhere near the $1 million he says a fair shot would have earned him. – DraftKings acknowledged the problem, a spokesperson admitting "the scheduled end of betting coincided very closely with the finish of the Patriots-Chargers game." – New Jersey's Division of Gaming Enforcement opened a review. Peabody later filed a class-action complaint alleging the contest was run negligently. He built that lead over three full days, live, in front of cameras. The software that failed to credit his money in time only had to answer to whichever state happened to be watching that day and nobody outside that room decided he shouldn't get his shot at the million.

A DraftKings employee accidentally leaked his own company's secret data. That same weekend, he won $350,000 at their biggest rival. The internet called it insider trading. It triggered an FBI investigation into the entire industry. – Ethan Haskell was a mid-level content manager at DraftKings, one of the two dominant daily fantasy sports companies alongside its direct rival, FanDuel. – On September 27, 2015, before that day's NFL games had all kicked off, Haskell accidentally published internal DraftKings data showing which players were being picked most often across every lineup submitted to its "Millionaire Maker" contest. – That data is only supposed to be released after lineups lock, specifically so no one can use it to gain an edge while games are still live. – That same weekend, Haskell entered FanDuel's Sunday NFL Millions contest and placed second, winning $350,000 off a $25 entry. – This is exactly the kind of scandal that keeps sports betting fighting off federal oversight – The story broke in The New York Times on October 5, 2015, and exploded online, with users accusing him of using inside knowledge from one company to win big at the other. – Both companies immediately banned all employees from playing daily fantasy sports anywhere, on any site, for money. – DraftKings hired an outside law firm, led by a former U.S. Attorney, to investigate. It took nearly two weeks. – The investigation found Haskell hadn't actually received the leaked data until roughly 40 minutes after his FanDuel lineup was already locked, meaning he couldn't have used it even if he'd wanted to. – That didn't end it. New York's Attorney General opened a formal investigation, demanding both companies turn over records. – Days later, it was confirmed the FBI and Department of Justice had also opened a separate federal investigation into the wider industry. – Sports betting and casinos have spent a decade lobbying to keep it this way, a state-by-state patchwork instead of one federal regulator – So each operator polices itself and each state sets its own rules on payouts, data use, and penalties. – Reporters then found this wasn't isolated – A FanDuel employee with access to internal data had also been playing on DraftKings, which FanDuel confirmed. – Nevada's gaming regulators went furthest of all, banning both companies from the state entirely, ruling daily fantasy sports met the legal definition of gambling and needed a license neither company had. He accidentally leaked his own company's secret numbers. That same weekend he won $350,000 off their biggest rival. Whether he touched that data before locking his bet became a federal case.

A professional gambler walked into Foxwoods with $1.6 MILLION, used a technique that let her spot tiny differences on the backs of playing cards, and won another $1.148 MILLION. Foxwoods refused to pay her the winnings, and the case ended in a courtroom she never saw coming. – Cheung Yin Sun was known in gambling circles as the "Queen of Sorts" for her skill at edge sorting, a technique that uses tiny manufacturing asymmetries on the backs of playing cards to identify high-value cards. – On December 23, 2011, Sun and two other high-stakes gamblers arrived at Foxwoods Resort Casino in Connecticut and deposited $1.6 MILLION as gambling funds. – Playing mini-baccarat over two days using the edge-sorting technique, the group won approximately $1.148 MILLION. – Foxwoods refused to pay the winnings, accusing the players of gaining an unfair advantage. – A Connecticut state police officer, acting on Foxwoods' behalf, confronted Sun. – She signed an agreement returning her stake in exchange for letting the dispute over her winnings be decided by a tribal court, one operated by the same tribe that owns Foxwoods. – That tribal court sided with the casino, ruling Sun hadn't merely edge sorted but had gone further, engaging in what Foxwoods called past-posting, placing or altering bets after outcomes were partially known. The ruling was non-appealable. – Sun and her co-plaintiffs later sued Foxwoods in federal court for $3 million, covering the winnings, damages, and alleged civil-rights violations, arguing the casino itself provided the cards, dealers, and tables they'd used. – In 2015, a federal judge dismissed the case entirely, ruling Foxwoods was protected by tribal sovereign immunity, closing the door without ever ruling on whether edge sorting itself was legal. – Sun was also the same "mystery partner" who helped Phil Ivey execute nearly identical edge-sorting wins at the Borgata and Crockfords, disputes that became far more famous and ended just as badly for the players. She spotted a flaw the casino's own cards had, and used it to win over a million dollars. A tribal court, run by the same people who own the casino, decided that wasn't allowed, and no higher court ever got the chance to disagree.

A 16 year old bought his dad's lottery tickets. One turned out to be worth $5 MILLION. The lottery denied the entire prize because minors legally can't buy lottery tickets. – Ward Thomas sent his 16 year old son, Benjamin, into a Mobil gas station in Long Beach, California, with 12 winning "Deluxe 7's" Scratchers tickets to exchange for new ones, something they'd done together before. – Benjamin bought five new Scratchers tickets at $20 each and brought the leftover $230 home. – That night, Ward scratched the tickets himself and found a "100X The Money" ticket worth $5 MILLION. – He validated it once at a 7-Eleven, then again the next day at the state Lottery District office both times it read as a confirmed winner. – On December 5, the California Lottery Commission denied the entire claim, stating the ticket had legally been purchased by a minor, who cannot legally play the lottery. – Ward sued the Lottery Commission and the gas station, arguing neither the store nor his son were ever told minors couldn't buy tickets, and no ID was ever requested. – The gas station's owners fired back with their own countersuit alleging Benjamin had used a fake driver's license claiming to be a Cal State Long Beach student, and that he'd successfully cashed a separate $1,000 winning ticket at the same store a month earlier using the same fake ID. – The countersuit also alleged Ward knew his son was a "prolific" Scratchers buyer and had always planned to claim any big prize himself. A father sent his teenage son in with a fake ID to keep playing the lottery for him and when it finally paid off for $5 MILLION, that same setup is exactly what made the whole prize disappear.

A Chicago-area man placed four $500 bets on an NBA game at odds of 350-to-1. All six parts of his bet came true, worth $389,000. Minutes before tipoff, BetMGM made his winning tickets disappear. – Mark Aiello, a Navy veteran from Roselle Illinois, opened the BetMGM app on March 2 2025, hours before a Chicago Bulls vs. Indiana Pacers game. – He placed four separate $500 bets on specific players rebounds and assists, needing six different outcomes to all hit for any of it to pay out. – BetMGM's own traders had reviewed and accepted at least one of his bets hours earlier, according to Aiello. By his own tracking, all six legs landed. – Minutes before tipoff, without warning, his BetMGM app showed all four bets grayed out, as if he'd never placed them at all. – BetMGM's message cited an "obvious error," saying the odds had been "incorrect or inflated" under its house rules. – This keeps happening because a casino is the house. It sets the odds, holds the money, and decides after the fact whether your win counts. – A prediction market doesn't work that way. There's no house, you're matched peer-to-peer, and your payout comes from the person who took the other side, not a company deciding whether to honor the number on your screen. – His story aired on CBS News Chicago in March 2025 and went viral, drawing over a million views online. – He filed a formal complaint with the Illinois Gaming Board. – In June 2025, the Board sided entirely with BetMGM, ruling the company had acted within its rights, and confirming BetMGM's own admission that the odds had been the result of an internal pricing glitch. – Even at what BetMGM considers the "correct" odds for the same bet, Aiello would still have been owed roughly $40,000. – BetMGM has given no indication it will pay even that. He watched every single part of an almost impossible bet come true on his own screen, then watched it all disappear before the final whistle.

A care worker making around $12,000 a year thought she'd won $42.9 MILLION on a slot machine during her birthday trip to a Colorado casino. Five hours later, casino officials told her it was all a software glitch. – Louise Chavez traveled to Fortune Valley Casino in Central City, Colorado, to celebrate her 53rd birthday in March 2010. – She was playing a Price Is Right penny slot machine after placing a 40-cent bet. – Just before 11pm, the machine lit up and displayed a jackpot of $42,949,673.84. – She wrote the exact amount down and spent the next five hours believing she'd become a MULTI-MILLIONAIRE. – She later said she was already thinking about helping her children and changing her family's future. – This is one of the biggest differences between a casino and a prediction market. – In a casino, the house owns the machines, sets the rules, and can refuse a displayed jackpot if it's later determined to be the result of a malfunction. – A prediction market works differently. It's peer-to-peer. You're trading against another participant, not the platform itself. – Around 4am, casino officials told Chavez the jackpot wasn't valid because the machine had malfunctioned. – They said the game's maximum possible jackpot was roughly $251,000, making the displayed amount impossible. – Colorado gaming regulators opened an investigation and sent the machine for forensic testing. – Investigators concluded the machine had suffered a software error that caused an incorrect jackpot to appear on the screen. – Based on the machine's verified game logs, Chavez's actual win was $20.18. – She was paid $20.18, not $42.9 MILLION A woman spent five hours believing she'd won $42.9 MILLION, only to discover the jackpot on her screen was the result of a software malfunction.

A couple on holiday in Fuerteventura woke up to a lottery email showing they'd won £2.60. They went out for a bacon butty to celebrate. Hours later, a second email showed the real number of £61 MILLION. – Richard and Debbie Nuttall, both 54, from Colne Lancashire, were two days into a holiday celebrating their 30th wedding anniversary. – Richard checked his National Lottery account that morning and saw a balance of £2.60. – They celebrated with a bacon butty and spent the day driving around the island watching windsurfers. – That afternoon, a second email asked him to check his account again. – The balance now read £61,708,231. – Richard assumed it was a scam and tried calling the National Lottery, but the hotel signal kept cutting out. – He and Debbie drove around the island with her holding the phone out the window hunting for signal. – They finally got through, and an operator confirmed the win while they were pulled over on the roadside. – Their share came from a £123 MILLION EuroMillions jackpot, split with a winning ticket in Spain. – Richard's first purchase as a multimillionaire was a set of golf clubs. Debbie bought a hairdryer. A couple thought they'd won pocket change and went for breakfast. Hours later, they were parked on the side of a Spanish island chasing a phone signal to confirm they'd actually won £61 MILLION.

A Florida couple taped two losing lottery tickets together, drove to the lottery office to claim $1 MILLION and told investigators they were "honest people who aren't into fraud." The lottery agent spotted the fake in seconds. They had signed their real names on the claim form. – Kira Enders and her boyfriend Dakota Jones lived in DeFuniak Springs in northern Florida. – In March 2024 Enders took a $50 scratch card called 500X The Cash to the Florida Lottery office in Pensacola and submitted a claim for $1 MILLION. – The ticket was two separate losing scratch cards ripped horizontally and taped together. – Then laminated to hide the joins. The words on the back of the two halves did not match. – Lottery officials identified it as fake within seconds of seeing it. – Before she submitted the claim Enders had already taken the ticket to three different stores to scan it. – All three machines said it was not a winner. She went to the lottery office anyway. – She had written her full name and home address on the official claim form. – She had signed an acknowledgment of the penalties for submitting a fraudulent ticket. – A lottery special agent called her six days later and asked her to come in to sign paperwork for her large prize claim. She drove straight back with Jones. – They were arrested the moment they walked through the door. – Both told investigators completely different stories about where the ticket came from. – Jones told investigators Enders knew the numbers did not match. Enders told investigators Jones had nothing to do with it. – Jones told the arresting officer "we are honest people and we are not into fraud." – The sheriff said publicly "if you are going to try to claim a million dollars you have got to do a lot better than this." – Both face charges including forgery and grand theft over $100,000 which carries a maximum of 40 years in prison. They taped two losing tickets together, laminated them, drove to the lottery office, signed their real names on the fraud form, got caught in seconds, came back six days later when investigators called, and told police they were honest people.

A mechanic bought a bag of chips and forgot his lottery ticket on the counter. The cashier kept it, burned part of it to hide the evidence, and drove to lottery headquarters to claim his $3 MILLION. Her coworker found out and demanded $200,000 to stay quiet. They argued about it on camera in the lottery lobby. – Paul Little was a diesel mechanic from Lakeville Massachusetts. – On January 17 2023 he stopped into a liquor store to buy a bag of barbecue chips and four lottery tickets. – His mind was elsewhere. His girlfriend had shattered her heel in a car accident. He was staying at her house changing her dressings and cooking her meals. – He walked out with his chips and forgot the tickets on the counter. – That evening the Mega Millions numbers were drawn. Paul had won $3 MILLION. He had no idea. – Cashier Carly Nunes, 23, held onto the ticket for two days. – Then she burned part of it to hide evidence and drove to Massachusetts State Lottery headquarters to claim the prize. – A coworker named Joseph Reddem found out. – He demanded $200,000 to stay quiet. She told him that was all he was getting. Lottery surveillance cameras filmed them arguing about it in the lobby before they even walked in. – Lottery officials examined the ticket. It was torn and burned. They told Nunes she would receive the prize once an investigation was complete. – Store surveillance footage confirmed the ticket was purchased by a man who was not Nunes. – The lottery posted flyers around Lakeville with screenshots of Paul from the store camera. They found him on February 13. – He received his $3 million check on June 30 2023. – Carly Nunes was charged with larceny, attempted larceny, false claim and witness intimidation. – Joseph Reddem was charged with attempted extortion. He skipped his court date. An arrest warrant was issued. He has not been found. A mechanic forgot his ticket on a counter. The cashier burned it and tried to claim $3 MILLION. Her coworker demanded a cut. They argued about splitting stolen money on camera inside the lottery building.

A retired repairman bought a $20 scratch card at a gas station in Roswell New Mexico. It showed he had won $500,000. The lottery told him it was a misprint. Their offer of compensation was $100 worth of free tickets. – John Wines was a 65 year old recently retired heating and air conditioning repairman from Roswell New Mexico. – In December 2014 he walked into his local Shell gas station and bought his usual weekly Powerball ticket. Then on a whim he picked up a $20 Ruby 7s scratch card too. – He sat in his car and started scratching. His winning numbers were 1 and 2. He scratched five winning numbers. Two showing $250,000 each. One for $75. One for $500. One for $50. His total winnings on the card came to $500,625. – He was confused because the maximum prize on the card was $250,000. He had somehow scratched double the maximum possible prize. — He ran back into the station. The clerk scanned it. The machine said it was not a winner. – He called the New Mexico Lottery. – They replied by email. "We did find a flaw in that particular pack of tickets and it's been reported to our printer. Thanks for bringing this to our attention. I did complete a reconstruction of your ticket and it was not a winner." – Thanks for bringing this to our attention. – Their offer of compensation for the $500,000 ticket was $100 worth of free lottery tickets. – Wines told reporters: "I didn't misprint it. I bought the ticket in good faith thinking if I won I was going to get my money and they told me no. They absolutely positively told me no." – He also said: "I struggled all my life but I never cheated anyone out of anything. – And when I was in business if I made a mistake I paid for it. They just act like so what." – He did not sue. His wife told him to forget about it. He appeared on Fox and Friends and said he had given up pursuing the money. – The New Mexico Lottery's disclaimer printed on the back of every ticket reads: "Liability for void altered or misprinted tickets or disputes if any is limited to the refund of the retail sales price." – The retail price of the ticket was $20. A man scratched $500,000 on a $20 ticket. The lottery said it was their misprint and offered him $100 to make it go away. The back of every ticket already said their liability for misprints is limited to the price you paid.

A businessman flew into Vegas for the Super Bowl and got served drink after drink until he blacked out. He lost $500,000 he doesn't remember losing. The casino kept raising his credit line the whole time. He sued them for it. – Mark Johnston owned a Mercedes-Benz dealership in Los Angeles. – He flew into Las Vegas the Thursday before Super Bowl weekend, 2014, already drinking on the plane. – By dinner that night he'd had roughly 10 drinks. Then he hit the casino floor at the Downtown Grand. – Over the next 17 hours, staff served him about 20 more. – His credit line started at $250,000. The casino raised it. Then raised it again. All the way to $500,000. – Chips dropped on the floor. Words slurring and he was unable to read his own cards, according to staff. – Total blackout, he lost the full $500,000 and remembers almost none of it. – Nevada law bans casinos from letting a visibly intoxicated person gamble or serving them more alcohol. – He hired a lawyer and sued the Downtown Grand. – Days later, a casino rep allegedly called a rival casino to warn them off Johnston over his debt. – The Nevada Gaming Control Board opened its own investigation into the casino. – "This is about you almost killing me," Johnston told reporters. "What if I had choked and died?" A man was handed twenty drinks in seventeen hours, blacked out, and lost half a MILLION dollars he can't remember losing while the casino kept raising his credit line the entire time.

A store clerk found a customer's $3 MILLION winning lottery ticket left behind at the counter. She and her manager tried to steal it. Surveillance footage exposed them. The rightful owner got the jackpot. – Carly Nunes was a 23-year-old convenience store clerk at a Cumberland Farms gas station in Lakeville, Massachusetts. – On March 24, 2022, a regular customer came in and asked her to print out several scratch-off lottery tickets, including a $10 Gold Rush ticket. – The customer paid for some but accidentally left the winning Gold Rush ticket at the register. – Nunes noticed the ticket, scanned it, and realized it was worth $3 MILLION. – Instead of calling the customer back, she and her manager, Diana Gouveia, allegedly hid the ticket and tried to claim the jackpot themselves. – The real owner returned to the store the next day looking for his ticket. – Nunes told him it must have been thrown away or lost. She even helped him look through the trash. – But the Massachusetts State Lottery had security measures. They require ID and often surveillance verification for big claims. – When Nunes and Gouveia tried to claim it, red flags went up. – Investigators reviewed store surveillance footage. It clearly showed the customer buying the ticket and leaving it behind, and the employees picking it up and pocketing it. – On April 1, 2022, Carly Nunes was arrested and charged with attempted larceny over $250. – Her manager faced similar charges. Both pleaded not guilty but the evidence was overwhelming. – The $3 MILLIO prize was eventually awarded to the rightful owner after the investigation. – The customer later said he was grateful for the quick police work and that justice was served. The case made national headlines as another example of lottery workers trying to steal big wins from customers.

A 73-year-old grandmother hit a $2.5 MILLION jackpot on a Wheel of Fortune slot machine. Security swarmed her. Then a casino employee opened the machine without her permission and pressed buttons inside it. The error code appeared after that. Bally's offered her $350. – Roney Beal was a 73-year-old grandmother from Shamong Township, New Jersey. – She and her husband were long-time loyal customers at Bally's Atlantic City. That weekend they had been invited as guests of the casino. – On February 25, 2024, she sat down at a Wheel of Fortune Wide Area Progressive slot machine and hit the jackpot. – The machine registered a double win. $2,555,908.70. – The crowd around her erupted. She hit the service button and the security swarmed in. – A Bally's attendant arrived, looked at the machine, and told her it had malfunctioned. The win was void. – Then the attendant did something that would end up at the center of a federal lawsuit. – He opened the machine wthout her permission while she was standing right there. – She refused to let him "spin it off" as he asked her to. She watched him press buttons inside the machine. – A "Reel Tilt" error code appeared on the screen after he closed it. – The casino said the error had occurred during the spin itself. Malfunction voids all pays. – Bally's offered her $350. – She refused and sued both Bally's and IGT, the slot machine manufacturer. – Her lawyers argued the machine showed no error before or during her spin. It accepted her money without issue. It displayed the jackpot without issue. The error code only appeared after a casino employee had his hands inside the machine. – A federal judge cleared the case for trial. – The New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement launched its own investigation. As of today they have not shared a single finding with her. > She is still waiting. Every slot machine in America has six words printed on it. Malfunction voids all pays and plays. Next time you're celebrating, read the fine print before security does.

A 34 year old insurance educator from Massachusetts invested $53,000 into a dying video game store that nobody wanted. Wall Street laughed. Then it turned into $48 MILLION and he brought the entire hedge fund industry to its knees. – Keith Gill worked a regular 9 to 5 job at MassMutual insurance in Massachusetts. – He spent his evenings posting stock analysis videos on YouTube under the name Roaring Kitty. He had almost no viewers. – In 2019 he invested $53,000 into GameStop. – A struggling mall video game store that every Wall Street hedge fund was betting against. – They were so confident it would fail they had shorted the stock meaning they had borrowed and sold shares expecting to buy them back cheaper when the price collapsed. – Gill posted his analysis on Reddit's WallStreetBets forum. – Argued GameStop was undervalued and the hedge funds were wrong. Most people ignored him. – Then ordinary people started reading his posts. Retail investors with $500 and $1,000 accounts started buying GameStop shares in their thousands. – In January 2021 GameStop stock went from $3 to $483 in three weeks. A 16,000 percent increase. – The hedge funds that had shorted the stock were now in a catastrophic position. – As the price rose they were being forced to buy back shares at prices they never imagined. Melvin Capital lost $6.8 BILLION in a single month. – Robinhood and other brokers under pressure from Wall Street suddenly restricted ordinary people from buying GameStop while letting institutions sell freely. The internet exploded. – Gill was called to testify before the United States Congress. – He sat in front of the entire House Financial Services Committee in a headband and said: "I am not a cat. I am not a hedge fund. I like the stock." – His $53,000 had turned into $48 MILLION at its peak. – He quietly posted his final Reddit update in April 2021 showing a profit of nearly $20 MILLION. Then disappeared completely from the internet. – A Hollywood film called Dumb Money was made about him in 2023 starring Paul Dano. – He has given no interviews. Made no public appearances. Nobody knows exactly what he did with the money. A regular guy with $53,000 and a YouTube channel no one watched turned a dying mall store into a weapon that wiped $6.8 BILLION from a hedge fund in one month.

A failed actor from Indiana told investors he had secret deals with Netflix and HBO to distribute films across Latin America. He raised $650 MILLION. He had no deals, had no film and used the money to buy courtside NBA seats and throw parties in Hollywood while posting it all on Instagram. – Zachary Horwitz grew up in Indiana dreaming of being a Hollywood star. > He moved to Los Angeles and got a few minor acting roles. Nothing significant. – In 2014 he started a company called 1inMM Capital. – He told investors the company had exclusive deals with Netflix and HBO to license and distribute films across Latin America. – The returns he promised were extraordinary. 35 to 40 percent annually. – The deals were completely fabricated. – He forged official Netflix and HBO letterhead to make them look real. Created fake email correspondence. Produced fake contracts. – Over six years he raised $650 MILLION from hundreds of investors using nothing but forged documents and confidence. – While the money came in he lived like a celebrity. Courtside seats at Lakers games. A $5.7 MILLION mansion in the Hollywood Hills, Private jets, Lavish parties, Designer clothes and he posted everything on Instagram. – He used new investor money to pay returns to old investors to keep the scheme running. A classic Ponzi structure. – When COVID hit in 2020 the entertainment industry froze. He could no longer raise enough new money to pay existing investors. Payments stopped. – Investors contacted Netflix and HBO directly to ask about the distribution deals. – Both companies said they had never heard of him or his company. – He was arrested in April 2021. Pleaded guilty to wire fraud. – Sentenced to 20 years in federal prison. A man forged Netflix and HBO contracts, raised $650 MILLION from real investors, and spent it on courtside seats and Hollywood parties while posting it all on Instagram.