It started last year: Seminole Casino Coconut Creek’s Marketing Director Michael Michaud had the idea: Give away $777 every 7 minutes from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m. on 7/7/07.

“My staff unanimously rejected it,” he recalled in a Seminole Coconut Creek news release. “They didn’t think it would be possible for us to manage a drawing every seven minutes for 12 hours straight.”

This year, they repeated it, on 8/8/08; “Crazy 8’s,” with $888 given away every eight minutes from 8 a.m. until 8 p.m.

At 9 p.m., Yolanda Gihha (center, with casino master of ceremonies Steve Lewis at left, and casino promotions manager, Gary Friedman at right) won the $28,416 pot of unclaimed, accumulated cash. That feature is important to the overall success of the promotion, Michaud noted, because “it keeps people here playing all day and into the night.”

This year 90 players took home a total of $79,920. “We ran out of parking in our 3,000-space lot both years,” he said.

The casino estimates it drew 10,000 people on Aug. 8 to the approximately 45,000-square-foot facility.

They plan to do it next year, on 9/9/09.