Identity of $15 Million Atlantic City Blackjack Winner Revealed

For most gamblers, winning a few hundred dollars is a pretty good score after a trip to the casino. Don Johnson did just a little better on his last few trips to Atlantic City, taking three major casinos for over $15 million at the blackjack tables.

Johnson – who is a different man than the famous Miami Vice actor he shares a name with – won a total of $15.1 million during a stretch that he attributes mostly to luck. He won over $4 million at Caesars Atlantic City, another $5 million from the Borgata, and helped ruin the Tropicana Casino’s month of April by winning $5.8 million there in just 12 hours.

“I’ll take luck over any other skill,” Johnson told pressofAtlanticCity.com. “There’s no magic to this. Eventually, someone would whack them. I’m just glad it was me.”

When he’s not busy winning millions from Atlantic City casinos, Johnson is the CEO of Heritage Development LLC, a company that deals with computer-aided horseracing wagering. While the amounts of his winning sessions are apparently accurate, he also admitted that he wasn’t perfect; he has suffered some losses over the last few months, too.

The big win Johnson posted at the Tropicana singlehandedly caused them to have a losing month at the blackjack tables – only the sixth time in Atlantic City history that a casino had posted a losing month at the game.

Johnson was known as a high-stakes gambler by Atlantic City casinos, and received the perks that were customary for such players. For instance, Johnson says that he had arranged to receive a 20% rebate on losses he incurred in the casinos, along with other perks.

However, these benefits have disappeared now that Johnson has become one of the largest winners in the history of Atlantic City. According to Johnson, he’s no longer getting the high-roller benefits from most casinos, and several – including Caesars and Harrah’s-owned casinos in Las Vegas, and the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City – have banned him from playing blackjack.

"I don't think they will let me play anymore," Johnson said. "But it's not going to change my life. If I don't play blackjack, I'll just go to the horse races."