Saturday, September 17, 2005
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
Megabucks luck strikes twice
92-year-old hits jackpot at Cannery
to become game's first two-time winner
By CHRIS JONES
GAMING WIRE
Elmer Sherwin sits Friday beside the Megabucks slot machine at which he won $21.1 million on Thursday at the Cannery in North Las Vegas. Sherwin also won a $4.6 million Megabucks jackpot at The Mirage on Nov. 22, 1989, the Strip resort's first day of operation.
Photo by K.M. Cannon.
Elmer Sherwin poses with an oversized check shortly after his first Megabucks win in 1989. He was 76.
Photo by Jeff Scheid.
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Elmer Sherwin just might be the luckiest man on the planet.
As a U.S. Army airman during World War II, the Ohio native twice escaped death when his crew was pulled from separate ill-fated missions shortly before it was to leave the ground. Others took off instead, he said, flying into midair collisions that killed everyone aboard. But Sherwin, now 92, lived to see another day.
We should all see days as kind as Thursday was to Sherwin, who for the second time in 16 years won a multimillion-dollar Megabucks jackpot while gambling at a Southern Nevada casino.
"You could play (Megabucks) all your life and never win. But I've always been lucky," Sherwin said Friday at the Cannery, where hours before he'd won more than $21.1 million. The North Las Vegas hotel-casino fittingly has a World War II-era motif.
Sherwin was also lucky in 1989 when he claimed more than $4.6 million playing Megabucks at The Mirage.
Representatives of Reno-based International Game Technology, which operates Megabucks, said Friday that they could not determine the odds of Sherwin's initial win, let alone his chances of winning twice. But he is the only two-time winner of the progressive slot system, which was introduced in March 1986.
As a cluster of television cameras focused on Sherwin at his favored Megabucks machine, Las Vegas residents Allen and Beth Lostetter stood to the side and marveled at their fellow gambler's good fortune.
"It tickles me," Beth said, adding that she hoped for similar luck in a blackjack tournament later Friday.
"It makes me jealous," Allen joked, eyeing the oversized $21,147,947.31 check placed nearby. Neither knew that this was Sherwin's second Megabucks win.
"That's good karma," Beth said when told of Sherwin's latest turn of luck. "I wonder if he wants to adopt any kids?"
Sherwin lives in northwest Las Vegas with his son and daughter-in-law, who "take care of my laundry for me," he said. He still drives, however, and recently bought an expensive new car using proceeds from his 1989 jackpot.
Having lived through the Great Depression, Sherwin said he's not prone to big expenditures. As he waited for IGT to verify his win Thursday, Cannery representatives offered him a complimentary meal at one of the property's restaurants. He instead asked for a hot dog, half of which he wrapped and took home to eat later.
Since 1989, Sherwin has continued to play Megabucks "once or twice a week," not to chase more money, he said, but in hopes of becoming the game's first repeat winner. That goal now in hand, he'll accept an undisclosed lump-sum payment and limit his future casino play to video poker.
Sherwin first won Megabucks on Nov. 22, 1989. That Thanksgiving eve, the 76-year-old retiree spent about 90 minutes gambling at The Mirage, which had opened to the public less than 10 hours before Sherwin's historic pull landed him more than $4.6 million.
His ex-wife, Florence, had loaned Sherwin $20 that night after he initially lost $80 from his own bankroll. "He never did carry enough money with him," she told the Review-Journal at the time.
Sherwin said Friday that he gave his ex-wife $10,000 each Christmas thereafter as a reward for her loan.
Thursday's win was financed entirely by Sherwin, who said he spent about $800 on slots at the Cannery before his lucky pull at around 5 p.m.
Because Sherwin's 1989 win, which at the time was the largest slot payout in local history, occurred on the opening night of the city's newest megaresort, unsubstantiated rumors circulated that Megabucks was rigged. Similar talk probably will circulate surrounding his repeat jackpot, but a state gaming official on Friday downplayed any likelihood of foul play.
"We've never had a Megabucks hit that we suspected was illegitimate," Gary Orton, deputy chief of the Nevada Gaming Control Board's enforcement division, said.
Following Sherwin's win, IGT for the first time reset its Megabucks jackpot at $10 million, up $3 million from its previous starting point. The game's current record jackpot is more than $38.7 million, won at Excalibur in March 2003.
