Penny slots. It’s that game you play when you’re 21 and want to milk the house for free drinks before going out in Vegas but don’t want to lose a ton of money at the tables. Once when I was 19 and studying abroad in Panama I managed to win $200 at the penny slots and at the time I thought I was rich (the dollar goes a long way in Panama). My $200 is like a single grain of rice compared to what this chick from Hawaii just won at the Wynn Las Vegas while playing the penny slots.
While placing a series of $3 bets, essentially maxing out the bet on the penny slots every time she pulled the lever, a woman from Oahu hit the mother of all jackpots and won $10,777,270.51 ON THE MOTHER FUCKING PENNY SLOTS.
She flipped $3 in nearly $11 MILLION on the most forgettable and least sexy game in Las Vegas, and she’s now a fucking legend for it. The machine she was playing was the IGT Megabucks Wynn Wheel and she made her millions on Sunday night.
According to The Daily Mail, she’s now expected to pay around $1 million of that straight to her home state of Hawaii because they’ve got an ‘11% tax rate on all casino winnings’ whether it’s in Hawaii or elsewhere.
This actually makes me feel a little better about the world because last weekend I was on a bachelor party and Friday night we collectively plowed through about 7 bottles at a club and ended up spending over $400 just in tax, something I was pretty fucking livid about. I can’t imagine having to fork over $1 million in taxes to the state, especially because I live in Florida and we don’t pay state taxes here (only Federal). Then again, I cannot imagine walking into the casino with $3 and walking out of there with nearly $11 million. I just hope she was cool enough to leave the Wynn and go straight to the Spearmint Rhino to make it rain.
For reference, here’s what the game looks like that she was playing, the IGT Megabucks Wynn Wheel: