Original Blog Entry: Man Spends $50 and Wins $1.1 Million in Penny Slot Machine

truesee — Sat, 07 May 2011 13:12:21 GMT

Player Wins Million Dollar Jackpot Off Indio Penny Slot Machine

George Hayes Of Hemet Spent $50 To Win $1.1 Million

Erik Sandoval

iReporter and Digital Content Director

POSTED: 1:47 pm PDT May 6, 2011

UPDATED: 2:41 pm PDT May 6, 2011

INDIO, Calif. -- A man's night of casino hopping with a friend ended in a way many only dream of on Thursday night.

George Hayes, of Hemet, came to Fantasy Springs Resort Casino on Cinco de Mayo with his friend as their last stop of the night.

George simply walked up to a one-cent Super Spin Wheel Of Fortune machine and put in $40 or $50, said casino spokeswoman Ciara Green. Not long after that, he watched five Wheel of Fortune symbols line up across the center line and knew it had to mean something big.

That something big turned out to be $1,127,123.88.

Today is my wife's birthday, Hayes said. She passed away a number of years ago. In 1985, she won a jackpot at a Las Vegas casino for $250,000, which happened to be on my birthday. Seems like it's happened again, only the other way around.

Hayes said he and his friend make casino-hopping trips every few weeks. On this trip, it was their turn to hit the casinos in the Palm Springs area.

He said there was nothing special that stood out about the Wheel of Fortune game, but he just walked right up and started playing it.

He didn't say what he was considering using the money for.

LINK TO PHOTO:

http://www.kesq.com/news/27805618/detail.html?source=palm

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