Green’s Dictionary of Slang

large sums of money, esp. those earned by performers or stolen by criminals, or as a large, but non-specific price.

1955		J.P. Donleavy Ginger Man (1958) 23: I’m making sixty-three thousand big bucks a year.
1971		J. Simon Sign of Fool 61: She settled out of court for big bucks.
1981		J. Ellroy Brown’s Requiem 16: He makes big bucks.
1989		(con. 1960) P. Theroux My Secret Hist. (1990) 174: Parent and I have real money – big bucks.
1990		J. Wambaugh Golden Orange (1991) 171: Apartment houses that charge big bucks to short-term tourists.
1998		I. Welsh Filth 145: We’re no necessarily talking big bucks either.
2000		C. Cook Robbers (2001) 239: Nuthin like a good mystery, pardner. Why we pull down the big bucks.
2006		F.X. Toole Pound for Pound 157: That could cost the promoters big bucks.