TUPPER LAKE - Patty Breault has had a tough life, but it just got a little better.
On Sunday, the first day of her vacation from Sunmount DDSO, Breault won $1,228,295.36 on a $2 slot machine at the Akwesasne Mohawk Casino.
Breault, 57, had been playing $1 slots and hit $100 two times in a row, so she started playing $2 slots.
"I said I'd hit it 10 more times, and if I didn't win anything in those 10 hits, I was taking my money and I was running home," Breault said. "It was more money than I went there with. And within three hits, the machine hit."
At about 8:30 p.m., Breault struck the numbers 3-4-5 on the bronze Megaballs.
"Then the machine, like, dies, but all of a sudden the lights start flashing and the whistles keep going off, and security comes over the minute they hear it," Breault said. "I'm still having a hard time believing it."
Breault said this is the first good thing that's happened to her in a long time.
She lost her brother and sister-in-law, Frank and Jennifer Hazen, in 2002 when their snowmobiles went through ice on Raquette Pond. She also had a sister die recently of cancer and a brother die in car crash, and her mother died two years ago after a stroke.
"Most of my life has been one tragedy after another," Breault said.
Her Nissan pickup is about to fall apart, and she is also about to lose her Lindsay Avenue home to foreclosure. She had recently moved into the Dugal Road home that her mother left her.
"I had just about hit rock bottom," Breault said.
But she kept going to the casinos, between one and three times a month, and kept telling herself that she would win big and be able to pay everything off and help her family.
That day at Akwesasne, she put her mother's prayer card on top of the slot machine, as she always does when she plays slots, because her mother loved playing them, too.
"I swear, I think she's the one that rattled the machine," Breault said.
Breault said that since she won, she switches between laughing hysterically and crying because she keeps thinking about what she could have done for her mother if she had this money when she was still alive.
"She was a tough old bird, lost two husbands and lost three children, and worked her life away," Breault said.
She said if her mother were still alive, she'd be dancing. Her mom always wanted to go to the Great American Garage Sale in Warrensburg, and Breault said she would have loved to take her to it with some of her winnings.
When Breault struck the numbers on Sunday, casino personnel had to rope off the machine and take it apart to make sure it hadn't been tampered with. It wasn't until 3 a.m. that her win was confirmed and she found out how much money she won.
She decided to take a disbursement plan rather than to get the money in one lump sum.
"I didn't want to do it all at once because I figure if you get it all at once it's a lot easier to spend it all unwisely, so I took the 20-year plan," Breault said.
She gets a chunk now, and she'll get another chunk of money yearly for the next 19 years.
"It's more than I make in my annual wages," Breault said.
After 34 years of working at Sunmount, she said she's hopefully going to be able to retire next year. But first, she has to pay back into the retirement plan that she borrowed from to pay for the burial costs for her brother, sister-in-law and mother, and to pay a home health aid to take care of her mother when she was sick.
In addition to paying back into her retirement, Breault said she's going to try to pay off as many bills as possible this year, but she plans to start making regular payments on the Lindsay Avenue house rather than paying it all off at once so she can improve her credit score.
She also plans to buy a new truck because her current one is on its last legs.
The one indulgence she said she'll probably allow herself this year is to buy a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. She used to have one but had to get rid of it a few years ago to help pay for her mother's care.
"I'm trying not to get overexcited and not go crazy," she said. "I'm trying to be conservative and take care of everything I need to take care of before I invest in any toys."
She also said she wants to help out her son, a recovering drug addict who's had financial difficulties, but she said she wants to do it without making him think he can get things for free.
Breault is looking for a good financial adviser, and next year she said she'll be looking to start investing the money wisely.
Breault said she's been getting a lot of phone calls - some from car dealerships and other financial offers, but also many from friends and acquaintances congratulating her on her win. People are happy to hear that winnings went to someone who really needs it, for once, since it seems like most of the people who win at Akwesasne are people who already have money, she said.
Breault has kept a quote in her wallet every day for about 10 years, and when her mother died, she taped it to the back of the prayer card with her mother's photo on it.
The quote reads: "To get something you never had, you have to do something you never did. When God takes something from your grasp, he's not punishing you but merely opening your hands to receive something better. The will of God will never take you where the grace of God will not protect you."
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Contact Jessica Collier at 891-2600 ext. 25 or jcollier@adirondackdailyenterprise.com.
