One lucky gambler has walked away as a multi-millionaire after scooping the largest jackpot in the history of licensed U.S. online casino gambling. The winner from New Jersey won $6,450,023 from an initial $200 stake on August 19th while playing with BetMGM Casino.

The progressive jackpot in Fruit Blaster takes the place as the largest licensed online casino win and could be a huge boost to the industry with consumers tempted to play for big money prizes.

New Jersey is one of only six states to offer licensed online casino gambling, and as more states look at regulatory changes we could see this record broken. In the meantime, many consumers are forced to look elsewhere with offshore casino operators offering a way for them to enjoy a wide variety of online casino games. Casino expert Andrew O’Malley advises U.S. consumers to look out for licensed offshore operators and the best anonymous casinos without KYC to protect their personal data when gambling online.

While this will be a life-changing sum for the lucky winner, it is far from the top slot machine payout with the famous Megabucks game paying out massive jackpot wins, including the $39,713,982.25 paid out in Las Vegas in 2003.

Progressive jackpot slots can offer extremely high payouts because they don’t have fixed jackpot prizes. Instead, the total grows with every bet made by different players until it is won.

Uncapped progressive slots have resulted in players winning tens of millions of dollars in cash prizes, with the jackpot resetting to a predetermined minimum after it is won.

Progressive slots are similar to traditional slots but a small proportion of each player’s stakes are siphoned off and placed in a separate pot for jackpots. The percentage of each bet that goes towards the jackpot will differ depending on the game being played, and will typically be between 2% and 3%.

This works in a similar way to state lotteries where the total prize fund is determined by how many people play. This results in a prize fund that runs into the millions that are funded by the players themselves.

The seed amount is the minimum amount a player could win in a jackpot. This is the amount the game resets to after a win and will be set at an amount that still encourages new players.

Progressive jackpots in land-based casinos are linked by a network meaning the prize fund is affected by anyone playing that game. Likewise, international online slot machines are in a position to offer large payouts. If more individual U.S. states pass legislation to allow licensed online casino gambling, this would see the slot networks and resulting jackpot totals rise as well.

With offshore casinos already offering U.S. consumers a legal way to access online casino games, it is just a matter of time before states allow the industry to grow in a way where they benefit financially and can offer better protections to consumers.