The Biggest Baccarat Winners

As mentioned, Baccarat is often seen as a game reserved for players who are high flyers with a high net worth. However, today with its increasing popularity, more and more people both new to the game or experienced in other card games are turning to baccarat. As a result, it is now possible to find Baccarat tables with very low minimum bets and it is no longer solely the domain of high rollers.

That said, as the game has and does attract high rollers, there have been some massive wins at the baccarat tables. While the game attracts little media attention compared to poker, baccarat is a game that has been around a lot longer and it has just as rich a culture and history.

The Biggest Baccarat Winners – World Series Baccarat Championship Winners (WCBC)

Such is the growth in interest of the game of baccarat there are now many competitions being held worldwide with some massive winning pots on offer. Prizes may only get bigger as more people turn to play the game so if you like to play, now could be the time to get more involved.

This is certainly the situation in the casinos of Macau in Asia, where baccarat brings in approximately 86% of its total gaming revenues. With such a huge volume of revenue the WCBC can offer massive prizes and in 2015 the tournament offered the largest tournament baccarat pot of $15 million. This should certainly prove just how serious the game of baccarat is becoming and how it is quickly catching up with the popularity of poker.

It was during this tournament that Lin Haisan managed to capture a massive jackpot of HKD 100 million ($12.9m). This win narrowly beat the previous world record take on the baccarat tables that was won in Melbourne, Australia.

The Biggest Baccarat Winners – The Largest Win Ever Witnessed

This win was recorded over a period of time during the late 1990’s. It affected the Crown Casino in Melbourne and the casino would have been put out of business had it not been for financial intervention. However, there was something strange going on because the people playing baccarat and winning the money were Asian high flyers and to this day, their identity remains confidential.

It was reported that a record single win of $12 million took place and with the casino never naming the players you could come to the conclusion something was amiss. As the story goes, this was a mysterious period of time at the Crown Casino, a total of $55 million was lost to baccarat during a short period of time. A group of people appeared to have made a huge amount of money?

The Biggest Baccarat Winners – A Billionaire Bags Big Baccarat Bonus 

This player was such an inspiration and legend at the baccarat table that he was nicknamed ‘The Warrior’. He became such a famous baccarat player that a character K.K Ichikawa was named after him in the film casino.

It was in the 1990s that Akio Kashiwagi was whaling the baccarat tables and he won a massive $6,000,000. Now being a billionaire, it was not of great concern to him if he was winning or losing vast amounts. He was known to be a big player, often placing stakes of $100k and $200k per hand while being seated at the table for hours on end. Despite the massive win he could also lose big as well. Being such a big hitter at the table it was surely great fun to be sat across the table from him.

The Biggest Baccarat Winners – Emptying the Reserves

The famous Las Vegas Strip is where dreams are made in the bustling casinos. Usually it is the players whose dreams are ruined and the casino whose dreams are realised. However, this is not always the case. Back in the 1960s there was a win across the house of $250,000 over the course of an evening’s play. Putting that into perspective in today’s monetary value taking into account inflation, you can consider this as approximately $2 million. While a win like this today may not seriously affect a casino, back in the day it will have created a large hole in any casino’s account, even those of Las Vegas.

It seems the casinos had it wrong back in the 60’s and as a result, player friendly rules were changed to be more in favour of the house. At the time it was not always the case that the house always wins when playing Punto Banco. It may well have been that baccarat had lost its appeal to the casinos and Renzoni, the man responsible for bringing Punto Banco from Argentina to Vegas, would have been out of employment but the change of rules reversed the concern.

The win took place at the Sands Casino and Tommy Renzoni was present. Having witnessed the catastrophe (for the casino), he probably suffered a few sleepless nights after the loss incurred.

Many More Big Winners

There have been a number of other huge wins at the baccarat tables. In recent times, the most notable was probably Phil Ivey who won millions playing at casinos in London and the US. However, considering he was then taken to court for cheating by both casinos and lost all of his winnings, he probably doesn’t deserve to be on this list.

Here at Spin Rio we have numerous Baccarat games for you to enjoy. We also have a number of tables designed for high roller so who knows, with a bit of luck on your side, maybe you could go down in history as a big baccarat winner.