Widow hits $10 million slot jackpot

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. – For 84-year-old Josephine Crawford, the golden years just got a lot more golden.

After a night playing the slot machines, the retired waitress was about to call it quits Tuesday when she hit a $10 million jackpot – the biggest in the history of casino gambling in Atlantic City.

Crawford, who gambles here twice a week and has been going to the casinos since the first one opened in 1978, had never won more than $1,000 before she came into the big money at the nickel slots at Harrah’s Atlantic City.

The widow from Galloway Township lives with her daughter, drives a 2006 Honda Civic and has no plans to buy a new car or a new house. But she always wanted to see Italy, where her parents grew up, and wants to share the wealth with her two daughters, five grandchildren and three great-grandchildren.

“Somehow, I’ll spend it. I’ll spend it at the casino, and I might go to Vegas,” she said.

The jackpot was won on a progressive slot machine linked to hundreds of others in Atlantic City’s 12 casinos. The previous biggest Atlantic City jackpot was $8.5 million, won in 1994.