Slot Machine - Cindy J. Hui

Born the last of seven children, Cindy Hui believed the odds were always against her. An avid gambling enthusiast anyway, Cindy played to play the games, not to win the jackpots.

"I gamble because I enjoy playing the games, not for the money." Cindy said. "Although, I certainly am not adverse to winning the jackpot," she added.

And win she did at the Aladdin Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas in early 2005. After breaking even after a morning of playing her favorite table game, Blackjack , Cindy spent the early afternoon eating at the food court and browsing through the Desert Passage Mall inside the Aladdin.

The Phoenix native sat down to rest at a progressive slots machine while her best friend bought "about half of the BEBE store clothes, belts and accessories." The flashing jackpot sign above the slot machine was at $4400 and, literally, increasing by the second.

At 25, this was Cindy's first visit to Las Vegas . Through college at the University of Arizona and during the last two years working as a Human Resources specialist in Arizona, Cindy had lived only a few hours drive from the gambling capital of the world but hadn't found the time to enjoy a Las Vegas vacation.

She had, however, played the slot machine games at online casinos and knew that to win a progressive jackpot you had to bet max on the machines. She put a twenty dollar bill into the slot game, figuring that would be enough to kill the time while her friend made her purchases.

The first spin was not promising, though. A blank reel, a half blank reel and a strawberry. But on – exactly – her second ever slot machine spin, Cindy bet the max and up popped a gold coin symbol, the number 7 and another gold coin symbol.

The lights around the progressive jackpot started to flash and the siren and bells began blaring. Laughingly, thinking that for the jackpot she would have needed three of the same icon, Cindy thought someone else had won. She even looked around to see who was jumping around like the slots winners always seemed to do.

She didn't realize she had won until she saw that everyone playing the games on the row was looking at her. "You won", a man sitting two machines down from her said, you should be excited. "I won?" she said, questioningly, then, loudly, "I won! I won!" Suddenly, she became one of the slot machine winners jumping around.

In the minute that she had played the two rounds, the jackpot had increased from $4400 to $4600. The odds certainly weren't against her anymore, she thought. It hadn't been beginner's luck, but, Cindy said, "I've always been a great believer that second time's a charm and, in this instance, it certainly was."

After winning, Cindy decided to compete with her friend and see if she could buy more stuff at BEBE, which, she is proud to say, she definitely did. The next day, back in Phoenix, she took her entire family out to dinner and afterward, still had half of the slot machine jackpot winnings left. She is already planning her next vacation to Las Vegas .