the first one is mine...my family and i were on a week long trip to vegas. on the last night, we were all playing on some nickle slots at the palms. this was soon after britney had stayed there when she was married for the first time. i wasn't having any luck on the machines i was choosing, when suddenly this quarter machine nearby started calling my name. i went over and put $20 in. was up and down and up and down. eventually i was down to just 20 coins left and was considering cashing out.
as luck would have it, there was a britney song playing and i was kind of bopping my head along with it and decided to play until the song was over. two spins later, i hate 7-wild-wild (and the wilds were "doublers"). i immediately looked at the "winnings" section on the coin bank and didn't see a change. i thought , "man, that should have been worth *something*" and tried to spin again. but the machine wouldn't spin. i looked up and saw the light was flashing. so i turned to my mom's boyfriend and said "wow. i think i hit something pretty good."
my brother looked over and he couldn't believe it. he had been playing the same machine at a different hotel so he knew the rules of the machine. so he said "dude! start jumping up and down and screaming!! you just won 10,000 coins!!" so we started celebrating and jumping up and down saying "10,000 coins!!", not even realizing or thinking about how much money that was. the girl next to me said "you know, that's $2,500?" i couldn't believe it. i actually didn't believe it until they handed me the cash.
the best part was that 2 weeks later i was moving to japan. this was enough money for me to buy a used laptop and carry me over until my first paycheck (2 weeks later). *exactly* enough money.

during that same trip, there was a moment where we were sitting around waiting for something. i can't remember what. my mom's bf decided to put $5 in to a nickle "jackpot party" machine. he accidentally hit the "max bet" button and turned to my mom and said "oh, man, i think i just blew it all on one spin". luckily, he got the bonus round. and because he had played max bet, each present was worth a huge amount of coins. he ended up winning $250 on that spin.

then, this one time my friend saw a guy hit the jackpot on a $100 slot machine. he didn't even seem excited, so my friend thought that maybe he didn't realize that he won. she went over to him and said "wow. you just won a million dollars." he said "yeah, i'm just now breaking even."

love,
shannon