Two millionaires made by vastly different means
An Idaho woman making a last-minute detour to Las Vegas and a Massachusetts dentist forced to retire after a fall at a Connecticut gambling facility became casino millionaires this week, albeit for wildly different reasons.
The unnamed Idahoan struck gold at Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino on May 18, winning $1.25 million. Westgate posted a tweet of the beaming winner cranking out a million-dollar-plus spin on a Wheel of Fortune slot machine:
According to the Las Vegas Sun, the woman hit the Wheel of Fortune bonanza at about 4:30am after playing the slot for under four minutes.
the woman and her husband were originally Texas-bound, “but made a last-minute decision” to visit Sin City
The Sun reports officials as saying that the woman and her husband were originally Texas-bound, “but made a last-minute decision” to visit Sin City.
Meanwhile, former dentist Gary Goodman has Foxwoods Resort Casino in Ledyard, Connecticut to thank for his $1.3 million windfall, which his attorney announced on May 18.
How a fall led to a million-plus windfall
For former dentist Goodman, his million-plus payday came not from a Foxwoods machine, but a puddle at the Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Nation-owned and operated casino resort.
According to The Day, Goodman was walking on the casino’s Grand Pequot concourse near Dunkin’ Donuts in June 2016 when he slipped on a puddle of liquid. The victim’s lawsuit against Foxwoods reportedly lists the injuries sustained as including a lower leg fracture, torn tendons, and a permanently damaged dislocated left ankle – all because of the casino’s “negligence and carelessness.”
Now, almost five years later, the ex-dentist has won a $1.3 million settlement
The injuries forced Goodman – who was 54 at the time – to retire. Now, almost five years later, the ex-dentist has won a $1.3 million settlement in a Mashantucket Pequot Tribal Court case, his attorney James Harrington said this week.
Casino camera captures it all
The Day reports that Harrington attributed casino surveillance footage as a major factor in how the case panned out, saying: “It made a very good capture of the event.”
The attorney described how a casino patron had spilled the offending liquid, which multiple employees ignored and failed to clean up “for some 20 minutes” until Goodman happened upon it.
While Goodman’s casino win came from unconventional means, the Idahoer’s Sin City victory is in tune with the more typical jackpot wins from slot machines. Las Vegas’s slots have also been on a jackpot payout roll recently. Several gamblers took home big winnings in the past weeks, including a prodigious $10.5m pull at South Point Casino.