La Quinta Woman Wins Big at Augustine Casino

CREATED Jul. 6, 2012

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  • A La Quinta woman wins big money, nearly 850,000 dollars, at Augustine Casino in Coachella. Jackpot winner Nancy Graf is still in disbelief that she won such a huge amount of money on one lucky spin -- and she won it on a penny machine. Video by kmir6.com

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A La Quinta woman wins big money, nearly 850,000 dollars, at Augustine Casino in Coachella.
Jackpot winner Nancy Graf is still in disbelief that she won such a huge amount of money on one lucky spin -- and she won it on a penny machine.

The Wheel of Fortune machine made a fortune for La Quinta resident, Nancy Graf.
"Stared at it, and looked at it, and he says, do you know how much you won, I said how much, then he told me, and I said no, no I didn't win that much."
But Nancy did win that much-- 848,593 dollars.
"Never thought it would happen to us you know, something you dream of and go oh I wish I could win, but in reality its not going to happen," said Graf.
"You always hear about it happening to somebody else," said Nancy's co-worker, Stephen Williams.
But this time it happened for Nancy, and on a penny machine.
"Thank you Augustine," said Williams.
"Yeah that's the only place we ever go," said Graf.
"She was playing 300 pennies, so three dollars for the spin, and she won the 848,000 dollars."
This is Augustine Casino's 10-year-anniversary, they have paid a record number of jackpots for close to seven million dollars this year.
"Our 10th anniversary is this month, on the 18th, we will be celebrating all month long, we've got promotion every Friday night, come down and win cash and free play, we're going to have cake on Saturdays, and then Wednesday the 18th is the big celebration," said Augustine Casino Director of Marketing, Jon Willett.
Nancy and Stephen both work at JFK Memorial Hospital, and have big plans for their big bucks.
"Pay off our houses, first thing and then we're going to go to Paris and celebrate, eventually I'm not sure, and then I'm going to help sponsor young guy from work, help him start nursing school," said Graf and Williams.
So what was Nancy's secret to winning big?
"Just luck, pure luck," said Graf.