Jackpot winner returns to. the Bow

Press, 30 April 1982, Page 6

Jackpot winner returns to. the Bow

NZPA-Reuter Seattle Cecil Burns won a $400,000 jackpot from a Las Vegas slot machine and promptly spent at least $300,000 partying and trying to win more. Then he returned to his Skid Row haunts in a new chauf-feur-driven car. Mr Burns, aged 56, sporting several days growth of beard, showed up on Monday at the Public’ Hotel bar, where he renewed old friendships and paid for a few ■

drinks. Then he was off. again—but none of his friends knew where. “He may have hopped a Burlington Northern (train) to Chicago by now,” said one man. > Mr Burns bought a new car with his winnings and had a' driver take him to Seattle because, “I don’t drive.” He indicated to other friends that he . planned to head for Oregon and Yakima next. I

Mr Burns won the jackpot—a record for a slot machine in Las Vegas—on April 3 at the Circus Circus Hotel and casino. He said then that he had been playing one machine when he got up to stretch his legs and returned to find it taken. Sitting down to wait' for his machine back, he put a few silver dollars into the nearby silver strike slots and hit the jackpot. “The Circus Circus gave

me the royal suite, and 1 called the bell captain and got all the pretty girls I wanted, the best-looking girls in the world,” Mr Burns said on Monday. After his win he told the hotel staff he wanted to return to seattie and they bought him an air ticket. But he had no intention of leaving Nevada immediately. “I cashed the airplane ticket and went to the Circus Circus in Reno and played v

the slots there, and then I went back to Las Vegas and back and forth,” he said. “I spent that $309,000 trying to hit another $400,000.” Instead he won little jackpots. Circus Circus, as required, informed the Internal Revenue Service of Mr Burns’ windfall. But he said he had not paid any taxes. "I’ve already spent their money, too,” he said. An I.R.S. spokesman said K

that the service expected Mr Bums to show all his activity on a 1982 return or face stiff penalties on any taxes due. Mr Bums said-he was the son of a Texas gambler, was bom in a tent and grew up in and around the West. He said he was in the United States Army for 16 years. A widower, Mr Burns said he had three children and eight grandchildren. He would give his children $25,000 each. A