Finally your day has come and you have hit a good run of luck in Vegas. You either hit a jackpot on the slots, or you had a crazy run on the roulette table and won a few grand. Many of us don’t realize that the party is over almost as soon as it starts, because the IRS is watching and they want their cut of your good fortune. What you are playing when you win will determine whether or not you’ll have to pay taxes.

Any winnings over $1200 on the slots or $1400 for Keno will be taxed, and with all the bells going off it’s easy for the IRS agent to find you and give you your W2-G form. Most table game winnings are not taxed. If you have a good day on the blackjack tables the IRS will not come after that money. The theory behind this is that it would be too difficult to stop every high-roller game after a player won a $1500 hand and issue a W2-G form, so the table games are exempt. Tournament poker winnings are also taxed because the casino can easily figure out who won the money.

If you’re a resident of the U.S. you will usually be taxed about 28%, depending on the state in which you live. Non-U.S. residents are taxed 30%, and that amount is withheld by the casino and given to the IRS. Non-resident winners can sue for that amount back, but it’s a timely process that usually requires a lawyer to move it along. I don’t need to tell you what happens to most of that recovered money once the lawyer’s bill arrives.

One way to recover some of the winnings the government will take from you is to claim all the gambling loses you have for the year. If you keep track of all the money you’ve spent on gaming (credit card bills and ATM receipts for example), it is dollar-for-dollar deductible against any winnings, up to the amount that you’ve won.

Whether through luck, skill, or some other means the following 10 gamblers have done what all gamblers dream of - strike it rich at games of chance.

Joseph Hobson Jagger
Jagger is often referred to as “the man who broke the bank at Monte Carlo.” During the 1800s, after an insane amount of research, Jagger discovered that some of the roulette wheels at the Monte Carlo casino weren’t completely random and favored certain numbers. Using his new-found knowledge Jagger won $70,000 in one day and went on to win more than $300,000 before the casino caught on and corrected their error. Today $300,000 may not seem like much of a windfall, but it definitely was in the 1800s.

Jamie Gold
By winning the 2006 World Series of Poker Gold set a new record for winnings in a single poker tournament. Gold pocketed $12 million for the victory and his record still stands after the 2007 WSOP prize pool failed to compare to 2006.

Anonymous Slots Winner
A 25-year-old software engineer who wished to remain anonymous became the biggest slot machine winner in history on March 21, 2003. The anonymous winner was playing a $100 Megabucks machine when he won $39,710,826.36 on a single spin.

Ashley Revell
Revell may not have won a huge amount of money, but his story makes him one of the biggest roulette winners ever. In 2004, Revell (from Britain) sold everything he owned - even his clothes - and went to Las Vegas. He put every cent ($135,300) on one roulette spin. With his life savings riding on “Red” the roulette ball landed on Red Seven and Revell walked out of the casino with $270,600.

Andrew “Jack” Whittaker Jr.
Andrew “Jack” Whittaker Jr. became the single largest lottery jackpot winner in history when he won the Powerball lottery draw in 2002. After matching all of the numbers Whittaker won an astounding $314.9 million. After deciding to take a lump sum instead of 30 annual installments Whittaker ended up with $170 million after taxes.

Jerry Yang
Yang walked away with the second largest prize in poker history after winning the 2007 World Series of Poker. Yang’s winnings of $8.25 million were much less than Gold’s $12 million, but it did top the $7.5 million won by Joe Hachem two years earlier.

William Nelson Darnborough
Darnborough was a roulette legend in Monte Carlo from 1904 to 1911. During that time he won $415,000, which at the time was an amazing amount of money. One of Darnborough’s well-known feats was when he won five successive roulette spins all on the number five.

Michael Larson
Larson’s gambling winnings came on a different stage than the rest of the people on this list. Larson won $110,237 on the game show Press Your Luck after memorizing the patterns of the supposedly random game board. Larson’s system caused an overhaul of the entire Press Your Luck game and is one of the most famous game show scandals ever.

Elmer Sherwin
Sherwin in one of the luckiest people on the planet. When he was 92 years old Sherwin won a Megabucks slots jackpot of $21 million. This came almost 16 years after he had won a previous Megabucks slots jackpot of $4.6 million.

Kerry Packer
The billionaire businessman is renowned for his big losses and big wins at casinos around the world. One old story tells of Packer suffering a torrid three-week losing streak that cost him $28 million. Another story tells of Packer going on an amazing Baccarat run and winning $20 million and also hitting another incredible run of cards at the MGM Grand that added $33 million to his pile.