We all love a story of the underdog rising to claim victory in the face of adversity which is why stories of jackpot winners always resonate with a wide audience.

While most of these tales of good fortune come to us thanks to progressive slots like Microgaming’s Mega Moolah the world of cryptocurrencies is rife with its own heart-warming success stories.

 Down but Not Out

For any truly heroic story arch our protagonists need to start with a distinct disadvantage or sense of loss, and this is exactly the position two brothers from Westchester, New York, found themselves in thanks to the pandemic.

Wedding videographers by trade, Tommy, 38, and James, 42, faced an earth-shattering reality – their business was on the verge of shutting down. The once-thriving enterprise would easily lock in forty weddings in a season, now the siblings could barely secure eight for the year.

While government stimulus payments helped them for a while even that money was not able to help the brothers meet their living expenses Tommy explains:

"We kind of fell through the cracks. The government stimulus checks weren't enough to sustain us. I'm a positive person but it was really tough, and not knowing the future was kind of scary."

Yet despite their dire circumstances the pair decided to take one last gamble by investing $200 in a cryptocurrency called Shiba Inu, a spin-off of Dogecoin, the meme token made famous by Elon Musk and Reddit.

 Multi-Million Jackpot

As slot fans know there is no guarantee of winning a major jackpot but the idea that it could happen is exciting enough in its own rights. In the case of our duo, while they were hopeful of a return that could help see them through the lockdown, they could not have foreseen what the next few weeks would have in store for them.

Unbeknownst to them, the advice from a friend to bet on Shiba Inu was the best advice they would ever get. Within days their initial investment of $200 had grown by 300% prompting them to invest another $100 each. As the token kept gaining momentum the brother even convinced their mother and sister to go in with them with the family ultimately staking $7900 on what is essentially another meme-coin.

The mid-April the unimaginable happened, Shiba Inu hit its stride and its market value spiked through the roof transforming the family’s $7900 investment in a mind boggling $9 million crypto-jackpot!

Despite their amazing windfall the brothers are grounded about their success, affirming that it was good fortune and not a skill that profited them, and warning others who would follow in their footsteps:

"Don't put in any money that you aren't willing to lose. The meme tokens are very high-risk, and you really don't know what is going to happen with them. We know this is not what typically happens, although Shiba has changed our lives.”

This is sage advice given that according to CoinGecko the brothers got in just before Shiba Inu clocked a 30-day run that saw the token increase by 11,000%! If you want to invest in speculative markets or spin to win on your favourite online slot the advice holds true – do not bet what you can’t afford to lose.