Russian Player "sss66666" Wins the First PokerStars $1 Million Spin & Go

Chad Holloway PR & Media Manager

Jan 12, 2015 2 min read Last updated Sep 23, 2016

It took Russian PokerStars player "sss66666" only 13 minutes and 26 seconds to become a near millionaire; in fact, he earned $1,240.69 per second in PokerStars first-ever $1 Million Spin & Go.

Originally part of their December Festival, the $1 Million Spin & Go tournament, which featured a $5 buy-in, was extended to the whole month of January, giving PokerStars players an better chance to hit the life-changing jackpot. For those unfamiliar, Spin & Go tournaments are action-packed hyper-turbo 3-max tournaments where the players play for a jackpot that is determined by a random generator right before the action begins.

Most of the time that results in a sum that doubles the buy-in, but regular prize pools could jump up to 1,200 times the buy-in fee. For the special $1 Million Spin & Go promotion, only three out of 10 million $5 Spin & Gos were slated to generate the massive $1 million prize pool, so you could say "sss66666" defied the odds when he defeated Belgium's "geldduvel" and Bulgaria's "Nonko999," who each took home $100,000 for their runner-up and third-place finishes, respectively.

If you hope to follow in "sss66666's" footsteps, those with legal access to the international version of PokerStars will have the chance to sit at a $1 Million Spin & Go for free as on Jan. 14 PokerNews will run a special $1 Million Spin & Go Special freeroll. That tournament will award 200 $5 Spin & Go tickets to the top 200 finishers.

In addition, those in in Italy, France and Spain can play "Spin & Go XL" on PokerStars now through the end of January. The Spin & Go XL offer PokerStars’ players the chance to turn a €10 sit-and-go into a €50,000 first prize, or €5,000 second- and third-place prizes.

Here's a screen grab from the final hand of the tournament: