'˜I thought I'd won a tenner' says mum who scooped £16,000 jackpot on a fruit machine

Debbie Maynard hit the jackpot after a chance decision to kill some time while waiting for roads to clear of rush hour traffic.

Debbie and her family popped into a casino - and just minutes later Debbie, 52, walked out £15,699.54 richer.

“It was amazing,” said Debbie. “I couldn’t quite believe it.”

Debbie had been on her way back from Southampton where she had been with her parents to collect her son George from uni.

They saw a casino and decided to go in “just to kill some time so we didn’t get stuck in any traffic on the way home,” said Debbie.

“I put around £10 in a machine. I’m not really a gambler. I didn’t even know what I was doing.

“Some chap next to me said you need to press this button and that button.

“I got bronze, silver and then he said I had got gold - ‘you’ve won the jackpot.’

“I thought I had got a tenner. There were no flashing lights or anything, but then it flashed up that I had won £15,699.54.

“I didn’t even know slot machines paid out that sort of money. It’s amazing.

“Everyone in the casino was genuinely pleased for me.

“It was so touching.”

Casino staff paid Debbie her winnings there and then - in cash.

“I was a bit worried walking out with it but luckily I had a big handbag with me.”

She said entering the casino in the first place had been “completely random. I was only in there probably 20 minutes, half an hour max.”

And when she hit the jackpot Debbie confessed she was not tempted to put any of her winnings back into the machine.

But, she said, her win happened on Friday the thirteenth.

“The next Friday the thirteenth is in January. I might have to put another tenner in then.”

So far Debbie has splashed out modestly on only a new golf trolley to replace a previous one that she bought for £3 at a car boot sale.

And she said her partner Andy Lambert, a member of Cottesmore Golf Club, had his eye on a new driver.

“I’m not sure what I’ll spend the rest on yet,” added Debbie, “it’s just nice to have some money behind me.”

But would she urge other people to chance their luck on a fruit machine? “I don’t think so. It’s a once in a lifetime thing.

“I wouldn’t want to encourage everyone to gamble.”