Colorado Springs woman strikes it big with a more than half-a-million dollar win at Wildwood Casino
Coins dropping and numbers flashing, all that ruckus meant that Megan of Colorado Springs had just hit the jackpot at the Wildwood Casino in Cripple Creek.
By the time it was all over, 44-year-old Megan (last name withheld to protect her privacy) had won $568,319.45 playing the game The Hobbit on a slot machine June 19. The coins that fell at the time were just the beginning, a little teaser tidbit to the real thing — a big check deposited into her bank account.
“I’m still in shock from when they called me today to start the transfer,” Megan said in a press release Mackenzie Spillane, the casino’s public relations representative. “By the push of a button, that’s what happens.”
With all that extra cash in her account, Megan and her husband plan to pay off six years’ worth of debt, she said. After that, it is all fun and games, as the couple and their eight children are planning a cruise.
For Megan, the win had her emotions on a roller-coaster ride. From thinking she had broken the machine, with all that racket, to raking in more than a half-a-million dollars, Megan, along with her family, is off instead to wild blue yonder to see the world from the sea.
For the machine neophytes out there, take heart; there’s hope. It’s all luck, Megan said. “I kind of don’t understand how you win in that game, anyway,” she said in the release. “I couldn’t even tell you how I won.”
According to Wildwood, the last big jackpot win at the casino was in November 2017 when two slot-machine jackpots hit. The first broke the highest jackpot record for Cripple Creek, and for the casino, when a Colorado Springs resident named Rebecca won $805,329. The second happened later that month when a 52-year-old Springs resident named Todd won $501,591 on Thanksgiving Day.
“We love seeing our players win big. It creates such a buzz and excitement in the casino that’s fun for everyone,” said the casino’s general manager, Matt Andrighetti.
Andrighetti is expected to announce the grand opening of the new Wildwood Hotel in Cripple Creek in the coming weeks.