My wife and I have been receiving some pretty good airfare/hotel offers to Laughlin, Nevada where my favorite TV show ever branded slot paid the big jackpot and set a record this month.

Shigeko Ide Stein, 61, won $2.99 million this month after popping penny coins into the Twilight Zone(R) Video Slots in a casino in the Nevada town of Laughlin, near Las Vegas.

I’m curious what she bet? Was 450 pennies the max bet? Some of those penny slots are not-so-subtly more expensive than $1 slots with 2 or 3 credit maximums. It’s sort of the new wave of casinos to tote: “play the penny slots, you’ll last longer” when the jackpots for these slots often require max bets near $5.

Remember that bizarre TZ episode where the slot machine haunts that guy? They made the machine sound like it was talking with coins! Way cool effect in the 60’s. It’s available on DVD. The complete first three TZ seasons are on DVDs. I’m curious if they’ll continue on with the final two seasons because there were some episodes that never went into syndication and I’m not sure if they put them out in the prior five TZ collector’s sets or the overpriced VHS tapes. We own three of the five DVD collector’s sets and didn’t see these unsyndicated episodes on there.

All that aside, congratulations to Ms. Stein, age 61. After taxes I’m guessing she will still walk away not only a record holder but feeling pretty darn good about being … in the Twilight Zone.

Did this post make you go hmm?

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• More realistic video slot machines coming
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