A gambler at Thunder Valley Casino Resort in Lincoln walked away from a 10-cent Buffalo Link slot machine with a $210,138 jackpot after placing a $10 bet, according to a casino news release cited by the Sacramento Bee. The win happened on a Friday morning at the tribal casino located about 35 miles northeast of Sacramento.
As reported by the Sacramento Bee, casino spokesperson Dawn Clayton congratulated the guest on “an incredible jackpot and a Friday morning they will not soon forget.” Clayton added that the win is “certainly a win worth celebrating,” the outlet reported. The casino did not release the winner's identity, and it remains unclear whether the guest chose a lump-sum payout or an annuity schedule.
Thunder Valley Casino Resort, located at 1200 Athens Ave. in Lincoln, houses roughly 3,500 slot machines and 89 table games, per the same account. The property has paid out more than 251,000 jackpots over the past year, averaging nearly 700 jackpots per day, or roughly one every two minutes, the Bee reported.
A Familiar Pattern of Big Payouts
This is far from the first eye-popping win tied to Thunder Valley's Buffalo Link cabinets. Hoodline previously reported that a Sacramento gambler won $236K on a similar bet, hitting a $236,313 progressive jackpot on a 10-cent Buffalo Link machine with the same $10 wager size in May. And in August 2025, a gambler at the resort turned a $7 wager into a $622,352.71 payout on a Buffalo Diamond Extreme machine, according to ABC10's coverage at the time.
The resort has also seen major wins outside its Buffalo-branded lineup. An out-of-state visitor won a $1,131,400 progressive jackpot playing Face-Up Pai Gow Poker in July, which resort executives confirmed as the property's first million-dollar table game payout, Hoodline reported. In February, a guest triggered a $546,000 progressive slot jackpot on the main casino floor, according to Gaming America.
How the Buffalo Link Game Works
The Buffalo Link slot line, designed by manufacturer Aristocrat Gaming, pairs the classic 2008 Buffalo franchise with a Hold and Spin progressive feature that requires eight or more Buffalo symbols to trigger pooled jackpots across linked cabinets, according to Casinos.com. That design allows dime-denomination bets across connected machines to build into six-figure prizes, since the games pool small portions of wagers into shared jackpot pools.
Thunder Valley Casino Resort is owned and operated by the United Auburn Indian Community, a federally recognized tribe of Miwok and Maidu Indians. The tribe opened the venue in June 2003 on sovereign tribal land following the federal restoration of its tribal status in 1994, per Wikipedia. The resort spans 270 acres and includes a 270,000-square-foot facility with a 408-room hotel and a 12,000-square-foot high-limit slot room, according to Comstock's Magazine.
What a Six-Figure Jackpot Means at Tax Time
Big wins like this one come with real tax consequences. For the 2026 tax year, federal regulations consolidated slot machine and electronic game jackpot reporting into a unified $2,000 IRS Form W-2G threshold while capping deductible gambling losses at 90% of total winnings, according to Wipfli. Under Internal Revenue Service rules, federal income tax withholding of 24% generally applies to net gambling payouts exceeding $5,000 from electronic slot machines, and all winnings must be declared on federal tax returns regardless of whether a W-2G is issued.
California compounds that tax bite. Under state law, casino slot and table game jackpots are taxed as ordinary income, unlike California State Lottery winnings, which are exempt from state income tax, per the California Franchise Tax Board.
People seeking help for gambling addiction can visit the National Council on Problem Gambling website, and the National Gambling Hotline can be reached at 1-800-522-4700. Gambling can be played without harm by many people, but it can also become an addiction that ruins lives and families, the Bee noted.
