Over the years, we have seen quite a few rags-to-riches stories in online poker, but few compare to the one last weekend when three Italian players entered a €1 BLAST Sit & Go, only to discover they had hit the extraordinary €1.000.000 jackpot prize pool.
BLAST tournaments, a so-called lottery sit and go, award a random prize every time, with players in the €1 tournaments usually expecting to see anywhere from €2 to €20 as the prize. The shock was very real for the three Italians who realized they were playing for a million Euros with €100,000 guaranteed to each of them.
The three players came from different parts of Italy and were playing on the Italian version of the 888poker site, a segregated online poker room available only to players in the country.
One in Ten Million
Top prizes in lottery sit and gos are very rare. For BLAST games, these trigger just one time in a million. Normally, however, the top prize is just 10,000 the buy-in, so a €1 game would have a max prize of €10,000.
However, right now 888 in Italy is running a €1 Special Edition tournament which has the 1 million top prize—but this only triggers one time in ten million.
When this occurs on the global dot-com online poker room, it is cause for celebration. Earlier this year, the operator put on a special promotion when the $100 game triggered a $1 million prize.
The fact that this occurred on the comparatively tiny Italian online poker room, and at a €1 game which only triggered the top prize one time in ten million, is quite incredible.
Three Lives Changed
What makes the event even more special is that two of the three lucky players were women, who only make up a small fraction of the overall online poker player base.
“Adria74” was the first player to bust out of the three-person SNG, and would have to settle for a €100,000 consolation prize, a relative disappointment considering the top prize.
It was down to “ele76m” and “ilaria200651” to play it out in a heads up duel. The latter came out as the winner, with the 54-year old mother of two from Mentana taking home the €700.000 top prize, half a million more than her opponent.
While only one player could take home the ultimate prize, it is safe to say that each of the trio had a life-changing day, with all three prizes offering a massive ROI on the modest €1 buy-in they each paid.
The Winners’ Reactions
As one could expect, the winners of the jackpot €1,000,000 BLAST Sit & Go were over the moon to find themselves playing for life-changing money after buying in for just one euro, and 888poker got some statements from the lucky winners.
The 54 year-old winner, A.M. from Mentana, said: “When I realized that the 1 million jackpot had been hit, I started screaming, so much so that my son got scared. I couldn’t believe it!”
“We are a family of workers, and we will continue to work. But, at least, now we can realize our dreams. We have four children; the eldest is 35, the youngest, 15. So, it’s important for us to give them everything they need – to send the youngest to a good university and to help the eldest with the house loan. And we can have a bigger house now, too.”
The 44 year-old E.M. from Civita Castellana, who lost the heads up match and received €200,000, was quite excited about the experience too, stating: “At the beginning, I didn’t realize it. Then I saw the amount on my account. Incredible! I will use it to renovate my house.”
The million Euro jackpot was paid out in full, but it certainly wasn’t the last one, as players across the world continue to play jackpot BLAST SNGs in pursuit of life-changing prizes and adrenaline-infused experiences.
