Denny Hamlin Reveals the Wild Story Behind His Six-Figure Vegas Casino Win

NASCAR icon Denny Hamlin may have been disappointed with his 25th-place finish at the Las Vegas Motor Speedway, but he left Vegas a happy man, thanks to his casino adventure that earned him a six-figure sum. Now, Hamlin has opened up on the strategy behind his $250,000-plus jackpot that turned his weekend around.

Hamlin hit a couple of jackpots on the slot machines and shared videos on social media, the highest being a whopping $126,150 from a single $300 spin.

The second round saw the 23XI team co-owner win $85,825 after putting in $500, followed by another lucky victory of $65,300. Speaking to Bob Pockrass, Hamlin revealed that it was his first time with the slot machine. He said:

“That’s the first time I played slots. My buddy plays them all the time. He gave up his hot seat for me and it worked out well.”

He added:

“The great thing about slots, you can’t do anything. It freezes you. Somebody has got to come over and pay you. At that point, it’s pretty easy to hit ‘Cash Out.'”

Hamlin has now opened up on the story behind the $300 bets after fans were curious about his casino moves. Speaking on the Actions Detrimental podcast, the Joe Gibbs Racing driver said:

“I watched Austin play this Buffalo game, and he’s been playing this thing for years… He was winning and he was just playing 7 dollars a hand. When he would win it was a few hundred bucks. I was just like, that’s not going to move the needle for me, like on the excitement level… I’m only willing to invest 11,000 in this thing, but I’ll do 300 a hand. I’m gonna get at least a fair amount – 30 hands or so, 40 hands in this thing.

“It never went down below 8. 10 hands in, it was a significant amount – I hit the bonus there. Then it went up and up. The original 11 grand never went hardly down at all. At the end of the night, you saw the 126… there was also a credit there of 50 or 60 or something… I end up winning somewhere around 170-ish on night one… So they paid me cash, the 126, and then they gave me a ticket for the remaining 50-something.”

Revealing what unfolded on the second night, Hamlin added:

“Then the second night, I took that ticket, put it in there, and said okay, I’m only willing to go down 35. And so it never even sniffed 35, it just started hitting again. And then it started hitting again… We won another 160… and I cashed out. The casino didn’t like the strategy… I was using up all the credits of the 52 that I put in. Every time I would hit a significant win amount over 10,000, I would say, give me cash – instead of transferring it to my balance… Needless to say, it was a wildly successful slot machine.”