At the Resorts World Casino in Jamaica, Queens, a woman named Katrina Bookman was playing slot machines when she won the big prize. The number that came up on her screen, $42.9 million, would have been the most money ever won from a slot machine in an American casino. That is until the casino said the machine had broken down and they didn’t have to pay her anything.
When Bookman saw how much she had won, she took a picture of herself with the machine and said that her “whole body went numb.” After a few minutes of chaos on the casino floor, workers led her away from the slot machines and told her to come back the next day to find out what would happen with her winnings. They gave her a steak dinner instead of money.
Katrina grew up in a foster home. When she was a teenager, she was homeless, and then she raised four kids on her own. The money would have changed a lot more than just their lives. She says that she would have helped her community and bought her son a barbershop with the money.
The casino says that it’s very clear that mistakes don’t lead to winnings. Katrina was playing a slot machine that usually only paid out a maximum of $6,500. Katrina’s lawyers say that she should be able to get at least that much.
