A retired Wisconsin woman will receive a check for $1,115,540.81 after hitting the jackpot on a "penny" slot machine at Don Laughlin's Riverside Resort Hotel and Casino in Laughlin Nevada. She was playing Aristocrat Technologies' Millioni$er multi-site progressive machine and had invested around $100. Of course the casino and Aristocrat are making a big deal about the fact that it was a penny slot machine.

I just have to laugh when I read stories like these because the truth is, these slot machines are really not penny machines at all. If you want to be eligible to win the progressive jackpot you have to be playing maximum coins which usually amount to several dollars a spin. It is usually more expensive to play these machines than to play the old three coin dollar machines. Many players I know would much rather play the quarter or dollar slots because they feel they have a better chance of winning a substantial jackpot with a much smaller investment. If they do play the penny machines, they usually do not play the maximum coins per spin. That brings us to this week's poll.