Hitting the jackpot

Tony said to himself, “I’ll just put another hundred in here, and if I lose this I’ll quit for a while.” His on-again, off-again relationship with online gambling proved to be a conve-nient source of enter-tainment, but deep in the back of his mind he had the thought: Wouldn’t it be so nice to win a jackpot, pay off all my debts, finance the kids’ education and put enough away to live comfortably?

His wife yelled out, “I’m getting into the shower!” “Okay, hon,” Tony replied as the casino accepted his new deposit and he went back to playing the new Major Millions progressive slot machine at Captain Cook’s Casino. Tony clicked away on the “Bet Max” button, collecting a few small wins, until suddenly the screen went gray. He looked a bit more closely.

“Congratulations! You’ve hit the Major Millions Jackpot!” was the writing on the screen. Tony blinked, rubbed his eyes, then blinked again, body and mind moving in slow motion, as if he were dreaming. Shakily, he summoned his breath, ran up the stairs, and yelled, “Honey! Put on a towel and come look at this!”

His wife got out of the shower, came downstairs and together they stared in utter amazement at the gray screen. Tony reached over, clicked the mouse and the gray screen disappeared to confirm their wildest dreams had come true. Three Major Millions symbols were lined up on the bottom of three lines on the screen. Unbelieving, he emailed the casino then emailed them again. After what seemed like an interminable amount of time, the phone rang as the casino manager called to congratulate them and confirm that everything was in order. And so a fairytale began — except in this case it was no fairytale. Tony P. had just become the Internet’s first mil-lion-dollar jackpot winner.

Operated by Jumbo Jackpots of Curacao on behalf of the Net’s leading progressive jackpot portal, Jackpot Madness, Major Millions is the only jackpot ever to have paid out a million-dollar winner online. To top it off, the jackpot is not payable in installments, but in instant cash! After the usual checks and balances were performed, Tony received his pay-ment in one lump sum wired to his account within a week of hitting the jackpot. And less than six weeks later, Jumbo Jackpots flew him and his wife on an all-expense paid trip to Monte Carlo to meet a number of well-known industry analysts, portal operators and advisors.

During the 4-day trip, Tony and wife proved that the win was no fluke. Every night at the casino, one of them would be a winner and they ended the trip in positive territory even after buying lots of gifts for friends and family back home. Considering that the Jackpot Madness team had a superb trip all mapped out, and the only time to play in the casino was after incredibly delicious 4-hour dinners ending at midnight, this in itself was an accomplishment.

A sales and marketing manager by trade, Tony and his wife immediately took financial and legal advice from family and friends, set aside a lump sum to pay taxes on the winnings, paid off the mortgage on the house, and put the remainder into investments and funds designed to cover educational and living expenses for themselves and their children for many years to come. They even set aside money for a new car, but as they looked at various cars driving by on the road, they realized that the second-hand Ford they were driving in was already the perfect car for their needs.

Tony and his wife have no plans to retire just yet, they plan to continue working until they reach retirement age. As his wife put it, “We love our work. We wouldn’t know what to do if we weren’t working!”