REAL PEOPLE: STORIES OF LAS VEGAS

Big money and high rollers may be the lure of Las Vegas, but if you thought only important people with big money gamble big, win and lose big, and really don't care because they have all the money in the world anyway. The rest of the tourists here are just poor dumb suckers that never had a chance. But the truth is, there are plenty of ordinary people come to this town a poor dumb sucker and go home one of the high rollers themselves. It doesn't get done on a $2 blackjack table or betting a $5 chip on the pass line. Those kind of monumental hits only happen on big odds games like dollar slots or Keno games, and for the most part that's true. Here's a story of just an ordinary, deserving human being getting her day.

On a Sunday morning in Las Vegas, the picture is a big casino, rows of blinking lights and bells and whistles, full of everything but life. By 6 am, most have petered out, the end of graveyard shift, the porters are wiping up ash trays and stacking plastic coin buckets, (soon to become obsolete thanks to the new cashless machine scam, better get your favorite casino's plastic bucket now). The vacuum cleaners are the only thing moving. The coin drop crew are just finishing the drop and the blackjack tables are down to a precious few as a couple small games are still going, the brave few that are either too drunk to know what time it is, or not drunk enough to admit they failed at everything all night long except staying awake to see the sunrise. The rest of the open games have the dealers standing dead waiting for 8:00 to roll around to get the hell out of there.

A little old black lady easily in her 60's, gray and limping from years of a hard life. Taking the early bus up for the day from the retirement home in Compton California for a 6-hour turn-around. She walks down the row of empty slot machines and blackjack tables, she passes a dealer standing on one of the dead games. "Morning" the dealer says to the lady just hoping to strike up a conversation with another human being. "Morning son " she says with a warm, friendly smile through thick glasses. "You looking for breakfast or a slot machine or what darlin'? " Asks the dealer.

"Well, I have all day to eat so I guess you could point me to a good slot machine would be fine." With that he pointed towards the Double Diamond progressive machine. " Try those over there. They were hitting earlier and for two quarters you might win twelve hundred bucks, not bad for a days work."

She walked towards the row of Double Diamond machines and kept walking a little further until she got to the 25cent Megabucks machines in the next row thinking this is where he had pointed her. (The Megabucks machines were Double Diamond machines; these are statewide progressive jackpot machines that are tied into the same jackpot, Nevada's answer to a state lottery.)

With the first 75cent spin she hit a line and paid her ten quarters. She cashed out her $2.50 and put another three quarters in the slot, pulled the handle (they still put the handles on the slot machines strictly for tradition.) and nothing, three more and nothing, well she only had three left, so she pulled out a ten dollar bill, surely expecting to use it for the next machine. She had four left so put the last three into the machine hoping to get the $2.50 back, she hated to win a little and put it back into the same machine. With that she grabbed the handle and pulled with all her weight.

The three wheels spun as they probably had for the last hundred thousand pulls. The reels clicked as they came to a halt, one at a time, behind the single horizontal line that crossed the glass window. Suddenly the silence of the casino was broken with a huge crack, the desperate banging of the bells and lights and the electric Megabucks progressive sign went nuts. The sign flashed $1,245,657. It flashed the machine number and back to the numbers $1,245,657.

The elderly lady stepped back from the blinking, banging, ringing machine and screamed in delight as she told the change lady. "Oh Lord, I can't believe it, I actually won twelve hundred dollars and some change, that's AMAZING! I've never won that much." She turned and looked towards the blackjack tables " Where's that dealer, he sure is a sweetheart." The change lady pushed the change cart up behind her, her jaw was hanging open, as she was confused as well as in shock, she looked up thinking she must have seen it wrong. She had a pen and she grabbed some paper and wrote the numbers down 1-2-4-5-6-5-7, she added the commas and almost passed out. "Maam, that ain't twelve hundred forty five dollars, there's no cents up there, those are all dollars maam, you just won one mmmillion , two huuuundred forty five ththththousand, sssixxx hunnndred fifty seven dollars."

The lady dropped her glasses fumbling for them on the ground, her hands were shaking so bad she couldn't put them on her face, she thought for sure this smarty little white girl was certainly playing a cruel joke on her at her tender old age. As she found them the security guards walked up, as did most of the patrons in the casino. No one could believe they were witnessing this. The security guards walked to the machine and couldn't figure out who the winner was, no one there looked like a millionaire. She got the glasses on and looked up at the flashing sign as she realized what they meant. "Oh Lord no, it can't be. Oh no, it just can't be, there must be some mistake." "That ain't no mistake lady, are you the one who hit it?" asked the head of security. "Yes, I'm the one who pulled the handle ...are you telling me I won a million dollars?

"Yes" screamed everyone watching this frail little lady who looked like she had worked hard all her life and lived an honest and moral life, had just became an instant millionaire. The girls were hugging her and people were jumping up and down as she began to cry. The head of security sat her down and picked up the radio and called the podium "Hank, call gaming and have someone come out and check the win, I'll call the casino manager." The shift boss walked over and took her hand "Congratulations maam, it's incredible, just incredible, we'd like to invite you to be our guest for the night and we'll call the Megabucks Company and they'll send a representative out with the money. The Gaming Commission will be sending a representative out to verify the win and there'll be press here soon too, and we'd like to buy your lunch and dinner and give you a chance to freshen up and let it all set in."

The lady was shaking and crying "Oh my God I don't believe it, I've gotta call my daughter and my niece, I don't believe this, they won't believe this. The dealer, where's that dealer." She shuffled as quickly as she could back to the blackjack table where the dealer who pointed her to the machine was standing, still on a dead game, straining his neck to try to see what had happened in the next row of slot machines. The lady walked right into the pit to the consternation of the floor people , and with outstretched arms took him in like a grandchild "Oh my lord ! Oh my lord!" was all she could say as she shook him back and forth like a big rag doll.

"It was you who pointed me to the machine, I'll have something special for you when I get the money son." Then she took his identification badge from his shirt collar and asked the floor lady to write his name down. Her friends from the retirement home began to arrive from the breakfast buffet. They heard the noise but just figured someone hit a little jackpot for a few bucks and more important, it wasn't them. But as they saw the crowd gathered around their room mate and looking up saw the jackpot still flashing $1, 245, 657 they began to wail and jump up and down with her screaming "You're rich Rose, you're a millionaire!!"

Later that day her daughter and niece arrived from Los Angeles as they were treated to the penthouse suite and a lobster and steak dinner compliments of the casino host. Hearing the story all I could think was "finally someone who deserves it got it." How often I've steamed while seeing the picture of the person in the newspaper holding a huge check with the Megabucks president and the casino owner with the caption "Millionaire from Beverly Hills hits the $10 million dollar jackpot, says now he'll be able to afford a third summer home in France." or worse "Canadian millionaire, while spending summer in his palatial Beverly Hills summer home hits $10 million dollar jackpot while in Las Vegas, says now he'll be able to afford a third summer home in French Quebec." (Are there summers in Quebec anyway?) (Anyone who ever thought Jews were cheap never met a Canadian.)

A month later, the dealer came home from a particularly long and tough Thursday night, he crawled into bed by 6am looking forward to a good nights (Las Vegas nights) sleep, he pulled down the blackened drapes and dozed off when his sleep was rudely interrupted by a hammering at the front door at 8am.

He opened the door to a Federal Express driver who looked like he was on speed "I got a letter for you, you just have to sign here." He grabbed the envelope and the clipboard as he grumbled something about being woken so early and something about the guys mother, then scribbled his name on the bottom and slammed the door, threw the envelope on the table and went back to sleep. A few hours later he awoke and put on the coffee and opened the envelope as an afterthought. He almost forgot the rude awakening this morning. There were two scraps of paper inside. The first one was a Hallmark card that simply said "Thank You" there was a short note that said "You're a dream come true, hope this buys some dreams for you too." He pulled the other scrap of paper out and unfolded the piece of paper. He noticed the name in the bottom corner "Wells Fargo" on top it simply said "Cashier's check" and in the middle was a dollar sign followed by a 1 followed by five zeros....$100,000.... He picked up the phone and made two calls, the first was to the Wells Fargo branch in Palm Springs to verify the cashier's check "Yes sir, that's a perfectly good check sir, you can deposit it into any Wells Fargo branch in Las Vegas, the money will be deposited into your bank account within 24 hours."

The second call was to the 21 pit where he used to work......
-Ken Pearlman