The airport always wins: The last slots on the way out of Las Vegas

Sunday, March 10, 2024 11:57 AM
Photo:  Shutterstock
  • Andrea Sachs and Natalie B. Compton, The Washington Post

Late Tuesday, a woman with a large roller bag took a seat at a Wheel of Fortune slot machine at the Harry Reid International Airport in Las Vegas. She hand-fed three dollars into the slot and pressed the button. The day before, an anonymous traveler had won the $782,467.12 jackpot at the same one-arm bandit. A visitor had also pocketed more than a million dollars at a Wild Wild Buffalo machine a few rows away, one of three big winners at the airport in January.

The handful of gamblers playing close to midnight included several passengers who had recently disembarked from Delta flights.