Handful Of Nickels Brings Grandma $10M

(CBS/AP)  For 84-year-old Josephine Crawford, the golden years just got a lot more golden.

About to call it quits after a night playing slot machines at Harrah's Atlantic City casino, the widow from New Jersey hit a $10 million jackpot late Tuesday. That's the biggest in the history of casino gambling in New Jersey.

The retired waitress knew when the nickel slot machine's bells went off that she'd won something but didn't know what. Crawford, who has been gambling in Atlantic City casinos since the first one opened in 1978, had never won more than $1,000 at a time before.

Cydney Long of CBS station KYW in Philadelphia reported for The Early Show that Crawford, a grandmother of five and mother of three, initially wanted to play the Wheel of Fortune or Jeopardy slots but decided to sit down at the nickel machines, where her granddaughter noticed the jackpot was $10 million. And luck seemed to be on her side from the start. "I said, 'You know, this machine's doing good. It's keeping me playing with that first $20.' "

Bells started to ring $100 later. The family celebrated at dinner. Now Crawford says she'll treat her family to a vacation in Italy, a well deserved treat for a woman who worked as a waitress until she was 72.

Crawford hasn't decided whether to take the money in a 25-year annuity or in a lump-sum payment of more than $5.5 million, but she has 21 days to make that call.