Page 18 - August 2009 • Southern California Gaming Guide

Janice B. won $150,000 when she matched all six numbers in the Barona Lottery at Barona Resort & Casino on June 23rd.
by Maya Winkler
What better time to win a jackpot than the sunny days of summer! Southern California casinos are cool entertainment oases this time of year, and if you take a close look at all the winners on these pages from the past few months, casinos have been serving up some
hot jackpot fun!
If you’re like most Southern California Gaming Guide readers, you probably look at page 34 every month—the Winners page—and dreamily visualize your photo there, holding an over-sized check or smiling in front of a slot machine, imagining just how wonderful you will feel when you become a jackpot winner. Most casino players dream of winning the“Big One”—or something close to it—the casino jackpot that will change their life—or certainly make life a lot more fun. And being a jackpot winner can happen anywhere, any time at the casino—on a standalone slot, a thrilling wide-area progressive, a casino-wide progressive for players using their players club cards, or during an exciting casino promotion.
Imagine the day when you become a big jackpot winner. What will it be like? I would venture to say that most of the jackpot winners on these pages had no idea that they would be going home from the casino thousands of dollars richer. Not in their wildest dreams. And what is a big jackpot? For this article we decided to feature winners who had won jackpots of $10,000 and over. In this or any economy, $10,000 is a very nice windfall, indeed.
Slot Winners
Video poker and video keno players have had a lot of summer jackpot fun. And while some of the stand-alone slot winners
shown here played $1–$5 slots, smaller denomination players did well, too.
Video poker player Alan M. from Los Angeles was exceedingly lucky when he played at Harrah’s Rincon in May. He was playing his favorite Double Double Bonus
Poker machine, when he hit a $10,000 jackpot and thought “Hot Dog!” And just 20 minutes later, he hit another jackpot— this time for $35,945! Alan, who is a regular video poker player at Harrah’s Rincon, had dreamed about hitting the jackpot, but never thought he would hit two in one day for a total of $45,945!
Wheel of Fortune® Winners
Hundred thousand dollar plus jackpots are not the norm, and most of us would be happy to win a $1,000 jackpot at the casino. Two lucky players shown on these pages won $100,000-plus jackpots on the wide- area progressive Wheel of Fortune® that is
Alan won two jackpots—$35,945 and $10,000 playing Video Poker at Harrah’s Rincon Casino.
linked on a network of Native American casinos and can accrue to over $100,000— and sometimes in the millions.
Wheel...of...Fortune! e familiar chant is heard on casino oors from coast to coast because no casino is complete without the presence of Wheel of Fortune® slots. Wheel of Fortune® has secured its place in gaming history as the most popular slot machine of all time.
First introduced in late 1996, the Wheel of Fortune® 3-reel stepper game o ered a never-before-seen spinning wheel top- box bonus with exciting sounds drawn from the popular TV game show. In
1999, a video slot version made its debut. e game’s initial success led to its being adapted to penny, nickel, quarter, dollar
and $5 denominations. Wheel of Fortune® slots have awarded over $2.5 billion to date to thousands of lucky winners throughout the country.
Douglas won a $70,000 jackpot playing Pot o’ Gold Video Keno at Viejas Casino.
Robert B. won $102,494 on a 25-cent Wheel of Fortune® slot at Casino Pauma on June 20th. And Rodney S., a retired Army soldier and Naval Yard worker from Desert Hot Springs, hit a stunning $187,271.42 on June 3rd. He was playing a 25-cent Wheel of Fortune® slot machine at Spa Resort Casino when he hit the MegaJackpot®. “I didn’t even know I won,” Rodney said. “My machine stopped before I could get my last spin; so I hit the service button thinking something was wrong and then the lady next to me said ‘Youwon!’”Rodneysaidhecouldnotbelieve
he won nearly $200k.
Colossal Coin at Valley View Casino
One of the few casinos with a casino-wide mystery progressive jackpot, Valley View Casino’s Colossal Coin rewards its players for using their Players Club cards in a big way. Colossal Coin is a progressive bonus jackpot on all of Valley View’s slot machines.
Luis won a 2009 Corvette in the Road to Winnersville at Sycuan Casino on July 15th.
Robert won $102,494 playing 25¢ Wheel of Fortune® at Casino Pauma on June 20th.
Page 18
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA GAMING GUIDE
August 2009