“Is This Serious?” PokerStars Spin & Go Produces Third Millionaire in Weeks

When it rains, it pours. July was already one of the most remarkable months for lottery sit & gos (LSNGs), also known as jackpot sit and gos and Spins, with half a dozen top-prize jackpots recorded across four major online poker operators.

But for PokerStars, the hot streak has continued into August.

On August 12, another player became a millionaire after a Spin & Go table hit the biggest jackpot available, creating a $1.2 million prize pool. Even more remarkably, the jackpot once again came in a $5 buy-in game, turning the entry fee into a 240,000x prize pool.

The odds of hitting the 240,000x multiplier are incredibly remote: just one in 10 million.

It was the third time in less than a month that PokerStars had awarded a $1.2 million Spin & Go jackpot, and all three came in the $5 game.

The recent run looks even more remarkable when compared with PokerStars’ previous jackpot history. There were just two $1.2 million Spin & Go jackpots in the whole of 2024, followed by only one in 2025. PokerStars has now matched that combined total in less than a month, with all three of this year’s jackpots coming in the $5 game.

The first arrived on July 17, when Denmark’s “dillerfar19” turned a $5 entry into a $1 million first prize. Brazil’s “malakaio300” finished second for $120,000, while Belarus’ “KuCoH” took $80,000 for third.

Just over a week later, on July 26, “Anatsuk334” from Argentina became the second millionaire, again from a $5 Spin & Go. Switzerland’s “StephanShakes” finished second for $120,000, with Ukraine’s “GrozovaIra” taking third for $80,000.

Then, on August 12, lightning struck for a third time.

The three players were once again playing for $1.2 million after the 240,000x multiplier appeared on a $5 Spin & Go. For one of them, the irony was hard to miss for Danish player “g3t real,” whose screen name seemed particularly fitting for the moment. As the $1.2 million jackpot appeared, he could only ask in the table chat: “Is this serious?”

But in the end, it was “Gwaugh1” from the United Kingdom who ultimately claimed the $1 million first prize. Hungary’s “Kepes897” finished second for $120,000, while “g3t real” took third for $80,000.

Three $5 Spin & Go Jackpots in 27 Days

How Unlikely is Three in a Row?

It is worth remembering just how unusual the top prize is in a $5 Spin & Go.

The vast majority of the time, players are playing for a prize pool of just two or three times their $5 buy-in. Even the more lucrative multipliers are rare. The 25x multiplier, for example, occurs 7,500 times in every 10 million games, while the 240,000x jackpot has odds of just one in 10 million.

So seeing a $1.2 million prize pool appear at a $5 table is already an extraordinary event. Seeing it three times in less than four weeks is another matter altogether.

On the face of it, three jackpots would require 30 million games to be the expected number of hits if the one-in-10-million odds are applied independently to every game. But that does not mean 30 million games must have been played. It simply means that, at 30 million games, the expected number of jackpots would be three.

$5 Spin & Go Prize & Odds

The more interesting comparison is the likely volume of $5 Spin & Gos.

PokerStars does not publish the number of games played at each buy-in, but even assuming that 100,000 $5 Spin & Gos are played every day, the number of games over the 27-day period from July 17 through August 12 would be 2.7 million.

At one jackpot per 10 million games, that would produce an expected 0.27 jackpots.

The probability of getting three or more jackpots from 2.7 million games would be only around 0.27%.

That does not make the three jackpots impossible. Random events can cluster, and an unlikely result is still possible. But it does make the recent run a genuine statistical outlier under that assumption.

And 100,000 games a day is itself an assumption. If the actual number of $5 Spin & Gos is substantially higher, the three jackpots become easier to explain. If the volume is lower, the run becomes even harder to reconcile with the published odds.

PokerStars Changes the $5 Spin & Go Prize

At the time of writing, PokerStars has removed the 240,000x jackpot from its $5 Spin & Go offering. The maximum prize available in the game is now $50,000, while the million-dollar jackpots remain available at the $100 and higher buy-ins.

There is another important detail about the $5 game. The $1.2 million jackpot was a promotional addition rather than the standard top prize for that buy-in. Under PokerStars’ regular Spin & Go structure, the maximum prize at $5 is $50,000, while the $2 game tops out at $20,000 and the $10 game at $100,000.

That makes the three recent million-dollar jackpots even more unusual. The 240,000x multiplier was not normally part of the $5 game’s prize structure, and PokerStars has now returned the maximum prize to $50,000. Whether the promotion simply ended or the recent run of jackpots played a role in the decision is unclear, but the timing is certainly notable.

That change does not establish that anything was wrong with the previous configuration. It could simply be a planned adjustment to the game’s prize structure.

There is also a financial question for the operator. If the published one-in-10-million odds were being followed and the $5 game was generating enough volume to make three jackpots in a month plausible, PokerStars would have to account for the occasional $1.2 million prize pool against the rake generated from those games. At a hypothetical 100,000 games a day, $5 Spin & Gos would generate $500,000 in buy-ins each day, with the current 8% rake producing around $40,000 in daily rake.

Whether the operator has insurance or another arrangement covering the largest jackpots is not publicly known.

PokerStars is not the only operator to have seen a cluster of large Spin-style jackpots recently, although the comparison with GGPoker is very different.

GGPoker had two major Spin & Gold jackpots on July 11 and July 12. Both came at the $200 buy-in level and carried a 5,000x multiplier. The odds of that multiplier are considerably better than PokerStars’ 240,000x jackpot, at around 30 in 10 million.

Two 5,000x jackpots in consecutive days is eye-catching, but it is nowhere near as statistically unusual as three 240,000x jackpots at PokerStars in less than a month.

LSNG Jackpot Hits Across GGPoker & PokerStars in Recent Weeks

PokerStars’ US operation, now branded PokerStars on FanDuel, also awarded a jackpot last month, although its top prize pool is capped at $250,000.

Winamax has also recorded several jackpots in Southern Europe recently, but its jackpot structures are designed to hit much more frequently.

For PokerStars, however, three $1.2 million jackpots from $5 Spin & Gos in less than four weeks is a different story. Whether it is simply an extraordinary run of variance or the result of a change in the game’s configuration, three jackpots landing so close together is difficult to explain.