Aiea woman plans Before boarding a plane to Las Vegas Thursday, Hideko and Richard Sakamoto's daughter reminded them about the Makiki resident who won a $2.5 million jackpot last month.
to spend $3.6 million
Vegas jackpot on kids
It is the second multimillion-dollar
win for Hawaii tourists in
4 weeks at the hotelBy Leila Fujimori
lfujimori@starbulletin.com"She said, 'How come you folks don't win something like that?'" Hideko Sakamoto said.
Less than an hour after the couple's arrival in Las Vegas Thursday night, the 73-year-old Aiea woman granted her daughter's wish, hitting a $3,677,071.12 progressive MegaJackpot on the Wheel of Fortune 25-cent slot machine at the California Hotel.
When the three matching symbols appeared, Sakamoto said she did not know what she had won.
"I'm still on cloud nine. It really hasn't sunk in yet," Sakamoto told the Star-Bulletin last night.
Hal Welch, slot director at the California Hotel & Casino and Main Street Hotel, said, "That was the biggest quarter Wheel of Fortune win, the largest jackpot on those types of machines. It's never gotten that high before."
The progressive games link 50 to 52 casinos across Nevada, said Boyd Gaming spokesman David Brendmoen.
On Dec. 12, Makiki resident David Tokunaga won a $2.5 million progressive jackpot on a $1 Wheel of Fortune machine, also at the California Hotel.
"It's unusual to have two big progressive hits that quickly at the same hotel," Brendmoen said. "It's a matter of being at the right place at the right time. We're happy to say that that place has been the Cal."
The Sakamotos arrived at about 7 p.m. Thursday, had dinner, then while her husband was playing craps, Sakamoto had casually deposited $20 into the slot machine without knowing how much the jackpot was.
After winning, the Sakamotos were moved into the Super Signature Suite and have been enjoying the Jacuzzi, bar and large living room.
The couple celebrated last night, dining with friends formerly from Hawaii and Hideko's brother and sister-in-law, who flew in last night from Hawaii.
Richard Sakamoto, who retired from his own successful cement block business, said, "I tried to mentally calculate how many years I would have had to work to earn this money, and it would take 35 to 36 years."
After the win, Hideko got on a speaker phone in the casino office with her younger daughter, the youngest of their five children.
"My daughter was more excited than I was. I told her to sit down," Sakamoto said. "She said, 'No, you tell me.' She was getting more excited each moment. She was ready to drop, I think."
Her daughter passed on the good news to her siblings.
"They told me to spend it on ourselves. They told us to take a world cruise," Sakamoto said.
Although she and her husband are world travelers and have taken a few cruises, she fears getting seasick.
Instead, the couple wants the money to go to their two daughters, three sons and 10 grandchildren.
Rather than take the winnings in a lump sum, he said they will try to avoid taxes and steer the money to their estate.
"We don't think that we'll have a very urgent need for the winnings, so we thought help the kids out, the children and grandchildren," Richard said. "Hopefully, they can use the money better than us."