Why Did The KFC Worker Cross The Road?
To play online pokies and win more than $10 million kiwi dollars in one spin on Mega Moolah, the world’s most popular progressive slots game of course!
A bloke from the land of the long white cloud has won more than $10 million kiwi dollars through a progressive jackpot playing online pokies at CasinoLand – an online casino available to Australian and New Zealand players – and the New Zealand Government is Not Happy Jan! (His Mum however is probably pretty stoked NOW, although initially she was not a fan of her son “wasting money” playing online pokies and spending time on gambling sites. I should think there is a pretty smug looking KFC worker somewhere in New Zealand right now who’s giving his mum $10 million worth of “I told you so” – along with a nice cup of tea of course, because Rawiri Pou looks like a nice boy – and nice boys make their mums tea.
On Tuesday, Rawiri Pou (pictured above) attended a press conference at an Auckland hotel where he was presented with a giant novelty check for NZ $10,144,395.82 (US $7.2m) for winning the Mega Moolah progressive slots jackpot on Casinoland.com.
The 27-year-old Pou, who currently works for a KFC in Matamata, said he originally won $1,500 playing the online progressive slot game but decided to roll over his winnings – leading to the giant payday on June 17. A Casinoland spokesperson said the company was thrilled for Pou and promised that the life-changing amount of money would be in his bank account by Friday.
Pou says he has no plans to quit his KFC job, perhaps because he admitted that he still doesn't know what to feel about his good fortune. That said, he did apparently feel a little smug about his parents having previously scolded him for wasting his money on gambling sites.
The Millionaire Maker – Mega Moolah
The world’s most popular online progressive slots game is not affectionately called the millionaire maker for nothing and once again it has created another instant millionaire – this time from our neighbour country New Zealand. But as incredible and life changing as this $10million will be for Rawiri Pou, it pales in comparison to some of the other lucky Mega Moolah winners – with the largest win on record going to English retired soldier John Haywood who took home over $30 million USD!
Microgaming who are the software company powering Mega Moolah, or as I like to call them “The Brains Behind the Games” are thrilled to hear of yet another player becoming an instant millionaire simply by enjoying their online pokies and playing the Microgaming owned Mega Moolah progressive online slots. And this win now takes the total amount paid by Microgaming to players around the world to a ridiculous amount. In fact:
Microgaming have now officially paid out over ‚¬583 million to online casino players since their inception over 15 years ago'
New Zealand’s Online Gambling Laws
This recent Multimillion dollar win is a big embarrassment for the New Zealand government as they appear to have been caught unprepared and (for all intents and purposes) unaware of the popularity of online gambling and playing pokies online. It's not currently illegal for Kiwis to bet with international gambling sites but the government is actively exploring ways to choke off access to gambling sites like the Malta- and UK-licensed Casinoland. The same situation is happening here in Australia, although I don’t think the Australian Government was quite as ill informed or unprepared as the NZ government appear to be.
The only acceptable form of online gambling in the country is the NZ TAB's online sports and race betting. Local casino operator SkyCity Entertainment even caught hell for launching a free-play online casino last summer.
The New Zealand government has yet to comment on Pou's payday but the New Zealand Racing Board is likely burning up the phone lines demanding to know what Racing Minister Nathan Guy is going to do to ensure more people don't realize the full scale of available options besides the lowly TAB.
