Couple in Need of a Break Get One Worth $1.8 Million: Record Quarter Slot Jackpot

The Thomases weren’t looking for a miracle, just a break.

Unemployed and more than $20,000 in debt from his failed contracting business, Dean Thomas knew he had to start life over again. He sold his truck and left his Granada Hills house in October for a construction job in Las Vegas.

His wife, Linda, a bookkeeper, joined him in Nevada three months later after selling the house at a loss when foreclosure loomed.

The Thomases are no longer worried about the bill collector, not since Linda hit a $1.8-million jackpot--the largest recorded quarter slot machine payoff--in a Las Vegas casino.

“We had lost everything,” Linda Thomas said. “Now, it’s all been given back to us.”

When they went to the Aladdin Hotel and Casino Friday, Linda Thomas decided to play a few coins in the slot machines while waiting for the next bingo game to start.

The 35-year-old former Encino bookkeeper sat in front of a line of Quartermania slots, machines hooked up to a statewide system of more than 1,100 other machines with a progressively growing jackpot, and pumped in a few quarters.

“I was wondering if anybody ever wins this, and then the four symbols came up in a row,” she said. “Lights started blinking and an alarm went off, but I was just wondering why no quarters were coming out.”

A floor manager walked over, put his arm around her and told her she had won $1,881,545.50. Linda began tossing quarters to people around her.

The pair have been besieged with attention since the win.

“We’re not used to this . . . we live a quiet kind of life,” said Dean, 39. “I’m used to living from paycheck to paycheck.”

The casino will pay the couple in installments over the next 20 years, and Dean said he will continue working in construction.

“I don’t know where we’re going from here, but we’re not going back to California,” Linda Thomas said. “We weren’t very lucky there.”