Rainbow Hotel and Casino | Premier Gaming, Dining & Live Shows

I was just killing time on a Tuesday afternoon, honestly. Been working overtime at the warehouse for months and my wife said I needed a break, so I drove out to Rainbow. I was down about $200 when I hit the bonus round on this machine I'd never played before. The bells started going crazy and I just froze—I couldn't believe what I was seeing on the screen. My hands were shaking so bad I could barely hit the button to cash out. I called my wife right away and she thought I was joking at first, but now we're paying off the car and finally taking that Alaska trip we've been talking about for five years.

I came with my buddy Carlos for his birthday weekend and we were just having fun, not expecting anything special. I'm not even that good at blackjack—I usually stick to slots—but Carlos wanted to play and I figured why not. Got lucky with some good hands and the dealer kept busting. Before I new it I'd run my initial $500 up to almost ninety grand. I was sweating through my shirt the whole time, honestly terrified something would go wrong. We cashed out and hit the steakhouse upstairs, then I drove home the next morning and just sat in my garage for like an hour before telling my family.

I've been playing poker seriously for about three years, playing in smaller tournaments around the region, but nothing with real prize pools like this. I qualified through a satellite tournament the month before and honestly wasn't sure I belonged at the final table. By hour eight I was exhausted but still in the game, and then I caught a really nice run of cards in the last two hours. Final hand came down to me and this guy from Vegas—I had pocket nines, he was aggressive all night, and something just told me to call. His ace-king didn't hit and I couldn't beleive it was over. That money let me cut back my hours at the factory and actually focus on poker full time.

My mom passed away in December and I was still pretty broken up about it. She loved coming to Rainbow, so I went on her birthday to feel close to her somehow. I played some roulette just to stay occupied and I put money on 17 because that was her lucky number. The ball landed on 17 and I just lost it—started crying right there at the table. The casino host was really kind about it, gave me some tissues and water. I ended up winning almost forty-five thousand dollars, and I swear it felt like she was looking out for me. I used part of it to set up a scholarship in her name at the community college.

I'm retired now but I used to work construction for forty years, and my knees were killing me so I was sitting down a lot that day. Figured I'd spend a couple hours at Rainbow while my wife was shopping with her sister. I put twenty bucks in this Buffalo Gold machine and the free spins kept retriggering. I won't lie, I was shaking pretty hard when I hit the final payout. My daughter thought I was having a health issue when I called her, but I was just excited. We fixed up the RV and spent Jaunary camping down in Arizona like we'd always planned.

I work in nursing and my shifts are brutal, so getting away for a night was just what I needed. A coworker told me Three Card Poker was fun and had decent odds, so I decided to learn it. Started with fifty bucks and just played smart, making small bets and not getting reckless. Had this amazing run where I won like six hands in a row and the table was cheering for me. By the end of the night I'd turned it into over thirty-eight thousand, which still seems completly surreal. I'm using it to go back to school part-time for nursing administration.