True Jackpot Stories

If you really want to know the answer to the question "what are the big cash winners playing in the casinos", the answer is: they are playing the slot machines with progressive jackpots. Here are the true stories from some recent lucky winners:

Riches to Rags to Riches
Paul Cook of Springfield, Illinois was not enjoying his vacation in Reno, Nevada last February. "My wife and I had booked the vacation there mainly because we like the skiing and the scenery." He said. "But just two weeks before our flight out I had to shut down my air conditioning business and file for bankruptcy.

So we were not really in the mood but we couldn't get a refund. One night we went out to dinner and on the way back to the car park, on impulse I put enough in one of the big slots for five pulls. The first two pulls, nothing – then on the third pull there are bells and alarms and sirens, I thought something had gone wrong with the machine but they told me I was now a millionaire. I just couldn't believe it." Paul walked away with over two million dollars.

Luck Turns at Last
Sixty year old John Ritchie of Tampa, Florida felt like he had it coming to him when he won the ten million dollar progressive jackpot at Excaliber in Las Vegas. "I've been playing slots for forty years, and I admit I really did drop a lot of money over that time.

Forty years I've never won any pot bigger than five thousand bucks, but it's payback time. Now I can laugh at all the people over the years who kept telling me it's a bad habit!" he said. Mr. Ritchie plans to take a Caribbean cruise, spend some time in Europe, and move to a luxury home in Vermont.

Change Brings Success
Jamaican Stephen Jones had already reached a degree of fame on his native island as a county cricketer, though he admits ruefully that he was never quite good enough to reach the world-beating national "West Indies" team. "We were visiting the New York area, and my wife and I found ourselves in Atlantic City.

Neither of us had ever gambled before, probably because like most Jamaicans we had both been brought up to believe it was wrong. But we found ourselves close to a casino so we said 'why not' and we put all the change in our pockets in the biggest slot machine we could find.

Unbelievably, on the very last pull of the reel – we had already turned away – the house jackpot came up and we won seven and a half million dollars! My wife actually fainted! We plan to do good works back home with most of the money because to be fair we already live pretty well, our children are all doing OK, so we don't need it so bad. I hope it won't change our lives too much" said Stephen.

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