ZEELAND, Mich. — Imagine winning one-hundred-and-seventy-five thousand dollars with the touch of a button.
For one man from Zeeland, a ten-dollar bet turned into a dream jackpot.
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Brandon Holmes had back surgery two weeks ago, giving him more free time than he's typically used to.
"I used to use PokerStars all the time," Holmes told FOX 17, "I saw that they reopened along with sports betting recently so I was like, 'ah, it's PokerStars, I haven't been on there in years, I'll go back on there.'"
The full-time firefighter and part-time paramedic is now off of work for the next few months.
With the free time on his hands, he went back to that old hobby of playing online poker.
"I was playing some tournaments, and in between tournaments I was like, 'Oh, they have this casino, let's see what this casino is like.'"
One night, Holmes hit a minor jackpot playing a slot game, winning a few hundred dollars.
The next day, he decided to play the same game again.
"I decided I was going to play those slots again and see how I do a couple of times," Holmes added, "ten minutes in, I hit this bonus. I'm watching the bonus, which I had hit the night before but it didn't pay nearly as much as it hit this time."
He couldn't believe his luck.
A ten dollar bet on the 'Divine Fortune' slot game on the PokerStars and FOX Bet network turned into over one-hundred-and-seventy-five thousand.
"Everything just started going off on the screen and it said, 'you won the mega jackpot,'" he chuckled, "I was like, 'This can't be real, no way.'"
"On the screen it said, 'You won one-hundred-and-seventy-five thousand dollars,' and I said, 'No way, this can't be real.'"
But it was.
Holmes says he isn't used to staying home and laying around like he's had to do after his surgery, but that has suddenly become a blessing in disguise.
"It was kind of a blessing that it happened right now, with being off work," he said, "that would normally be a day I'd be working, so I wouldn't be able to play poker at all, it just worked out in my favor."
Of course, with online gambling at the touch of our finger tips here in the State of Michigan, Holmes cautions everybody to be smart while playing.
"Just because it happened to me doesn't mean it's going to happen to someone who sees this story," he said about his message to others, "yeah, someone won the powerball too but I've never won it when I've played."
And as for the winnings, Holmes has plenty of ideas and plans.
"I'm getting married in June, we have a honeymoon to plan, a wedding to continue to pay for, a couple of other things we thought about doing that now we can probably do, have some landscaping to put in to our new house here, but a majority will be invested."
While most of the money will go into the stock market, Holmes did admit that he may spend a little bit more on the upcoming honeymoon and may add an extra night or two.
Holmes also runs his own CPR classes in Ada called 'Life Saver CPR' to help train others needing certification.
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