Maui woman wins $2.2 million in Vegas

By Vicki Viotti
Advertiser Staff Writer

A Maui woman Monday night stepped off a plane in Las Vegas, checked into her hotel room and checked out a $1 "Wheel of Fortune" slot machine next door that handsomely repaid her $2 investment.

At about 8:30 p.m., the machine lit up, sounded alarms and delivered $2.2 million to the stunned gambler, who had to be told by a passerby at the Main Street Station casino that she'd won the big jackpot.

The woman, who asked casino officials not to release her name, was a guest of the adjacent California Hotel, a familiar haven to many Hawai'i residents visiting Vegas.

"She checked into her hotel, the California, and played $10 on a regular slot machine there, and didn't have much luck," said Dave Brendmoen, publicity manager for Boyd Gaming Corp., which owns the California, Main Street Station and Fremont hotel-casino complexes. "Then she came to Main Street, put $2 on the machine and won the jackpot."

The Wheel of Fortune is a network of linked slot machines owned by International Gaming Technologies (IGT), a Las Vegas-based company. This machine was part of the Nevada bank of machines in which the jackpot mounts statewide.

Rick Sorensen, an IGT spokesman, said there are 1,053 dollar machines in the Nevada bank and that the machine had last paid out $5 million June 15 at the Monte Carlo in Las Vegas. The previous jackpot before that was a $1.8 million payout in February, he said.

Monday night's winner was a traveler with the Vacations-Hawaii group and had arrived on the weekday charter flight that lands just before 8 p.m.

"I understand she's somewhat in shock," Brendmoen said.