It’s the dream of every slot player: Slide money into the machine, press the button, (or pull the handle if you’re an old school player), and watch the symbols line up. Slot jackpot win! Suddenly you realize you’ve just won a big jackpot. You hit it really big. It could be a life-changing moment if the prize is hefty enough.
“About 12 years ago a group of ladies came in to play and brought a friend whose husband had passed away,” recalled Johnny Barrientoz, director of slots who oversees some 1,430 machines at both Turtle Creek Casino and Leelanau Sands Casino. “They just wanted to take their friend out to have some fun, take her mind off her troubles.”
It was the widow’s first-ever visit to a casino. She felt out of place, but was willing to try her hand at a slot machine. She sat down and slipped $20 into a progressive Wheel of Fortune slot machine. On her very first pull ever, she hit a $330,000-plus slot jackpot win. “It changed her perspective,” recalled Barrientoz. “It just goes to show, it’s timing and luck.”
Kalkaska resident Jennifer Guggisberg was celebrating the July 4 holiday by playing a 10-cent Quick Hits game at Turtle Creek when she hit for $4,638. “All of a sudden all of these Quick Hit symbols came up,” she said. “I didn’t realize what I won at first. Then I got excited. You’d think I won a million dollars!” Guggisberg quickly made plans for a family trip to Florida next April.
Two days later, on a Friday night, she returned hit a slot jackpot win for another $2,200. Then her fiancé went back two days after that and hit for $5,400 on another Quick Hit machine, right next to the one that originally paid off for Guggisberg. On July 10, Jacquelyn Williams was at Turtle Creek with her mother and playing a Life of Luxury machine for the first time when her 60 cents resulted in a $6,358 jackpot.
“I had only been there 20 minutes or so,” said the Bay City resident. ”I picked a gem, and I didn’t know what was happening. The machine just kept adding up the money. It was just a very lucky moment.”
Read more about slot jackpot win at Northern Express
