Lucky Greenacres woman wins truck

On July 7, when Desiree Poffenroth was down to her last seven cents at Northern Quest Casino, the 29 year-old Greenacres woman wasn’t feeling lucky at all.

Then, as Poffenroth pulled those last few pennies out of the Queen of the Nile slot machine she was playing – because, “I didn’t want to leave broke” – her luck took a drastic turn for the good.

The public address system had just announced Poffenroth had beaten some of the longest of odds and left with a brand new F-150 truck from Gus Johnson Ford. Poffenroth later chose to trade the vehicle, valued at $26,000, for a 2008 Ford Escape.

Admittedly not a gambler and hardly a big spender, Poffenroth was at the casino that day with just $5 and only playing penny machines.

“I just went to watch people,” said Poffenroth, who went with her mom and grandmother. “It was a good thing for my grandma to go out and have some fun. I never imagined I’d win a truck.”

To enter the “07-07-07 One Day Giveaway” drawing, Poffenroth was one of some 16,000 people who swiped their Camas Club Cards. When she swiped her card, Poffenroth didn’t even know she was getting in the drawing for the grand prize.

During that promotion, Northern Quest offered a variety of other prizes, including hourly drawings for $777.

“Mom kept bugging me, you’re going to get the truck, you’re going to get the truck,” Poffenroth said. “I wasn’t listening and all of a sudden I saw my name come across the big screen (and the PA),” she said.