Jackpot winner
foretold winning
‘the megabucks’

Debbie Perez Nakamura
won $4.5 million Saturday
playing a quarter slot

By Leila Fujimori
and Pat Omandam
Star-Bulletin

Just before Debbie Perez Nakamura left for her Las Vegas vacation, she told her boss at Tri-West of Hawaii she would hit the jackpot.

A longtime family friend -- a faith healer who lives across the dirt road from Nakamura's parents in Honouliuli -- also predicted that she would do so. "You're going to get it; you're going to get the big one," Dulce Crail said.

Nakamura, a 29-year-old Waipahu High graduate, left town Thursday and on Saturday won the largest quarter-slot jackpot in Las Vegas history.

Those who know her say they are happy at her good fortune.

"She even said before she left that, "I'm gonna win the big one; I'm gonna win the jackpot, the megabucks.' So it was on her mind before she left. I told her: "Yeah, before you do, don't forget about us here. Call me when you win. I want to come up," said Jackson Uyeda, manager of Tri-West, a flooring distributor, and Nakamura's boss.

Nakamura was playing the Jeopardy progressive game at the Mirage when she hit the $4.5 million jackpot. She had used about $60 in the slot machine when her next 75 cents proved to be the lucky pull.

Jeopardy is a 25-cent slot machine that must have three coins inserted to hit the progressive jackpot. The last jackpot hit for $1,380,675 on June 4, 1998, at the Sands Regency in Reno.

Nakamura, a Waipahu wife and mother who is pregnant with her second child, had asked gaming officials not to release her identity, but good news travels fast in Hawaii.

Nakamura returned home yesterday but could not be reached for comment.

Co-worker Ricky Tahara described her as fun, easygoing -- and a little bit lucky.

Tahara, a sales manager at Tri-West, returned from vacation yesterday and couldn't believe the news. He and Nakamura have worked at the company for two years.

"I thought they were pulling my leg," Tahara said. "Then when the warehouse guys were asking me what did I think about it, then I started believing -- "No way, she won!"

"Everybody wishes that it was them. But it's at least cool that it is somebody you know," he said.

Uyeda said Nakamura is expected back to work tomorrow. Nevertheless, he realizes she probably will not stay for long.

"She's the type, she would probably come back for a little while and see how it is. And when she realizes what she's got, she would say, "I don't need to work,'" he said.

Nevada law allows Nakamura 90 days to decide if she will take the $4.5 million in payments spread over 25 years or if she wants to accept a lesser amount in a lump sum.

Crail said she cried in happiness the night she found out about Nakamura's win. Crail has a large following and wants to start her own church in Ewa. Nakamura often brings her daughter to her when she is sick, Crail said.

"Debbie is going to help me with my dream," said Crail.

Fran Crail, Dulce Crail's sister-in-law, said Nakamura has one brother and six married sisters.

"She's a sweet girl," she said. "She's real kind-hearted, real deserving."

Before leaving on her trip, Nakamura consulted several times with good friend and travel agent Dwayne Tandal. He said Nakamura is about four months pregnant, so her husband, David, urged her to go to Las Vegas early in her pregnancy.

"She sure picked the right time to go," Tandal said.