Most people are content to let old locks wash down the drain. They're also okay with monetary prizes for winning competitions.
But for one Danish online gamer, the mainstream methods just didn't cut it.
The player, identified solely as ‘JA', won an online competition last week hosted by BestOnlineCasino.com, and instead of the traditional prize, he walked away with a roulette ball made with locks of Michael Jackson's hair.
OnlineGamblingPal.com bought the hair sample for a whopping $10,871 at an auction last December, which had been pilfered from a room at New York’s Carlyle Hotel, where Jackson once stayed for a charity event.
The casino could think of no better way to thank the late pop legend by developing a game centred around the hair, and transformed the sample into a roulette ball to be used as the prize.
Called ‘Wacko Jacko’s Hairball', the game combines “classic arcade-style gameplay with browser-based simplicity”, according to BestOnlineCasino. To help the player visualise the waiting reward, 'Hairball' also boasts Jackson-like sound effects and images of the star losing his hair as the game progresses.
And JA won it last week with a staggering score of 170,700. According to the winner, his victory came purely as a relief after a high-stakes struggle.
“There was some strong competition at the end,” he told BestOnlineCasino.com. “Someone else beat my score and I had to do it again.” And beat it he did.
But despite the fierce battle, JA said, ‘Wacko Jacko’s Hairball’ wasn’t particularly challenging. In the end, it only took him a few hours to perfect his score.
JA is still undecided about future plans for his hard-earned prize, aside from hopes that – in true 'Man in the Mirror' style – the roulette ball will help make a change.
“There’s a project that I want to help out, so maybe I’ll auction it off so I can help those people that way," he said.
So it would appear that while Jackson is long dead, his hair continues to help good causes.
Although the official competition has finished, ‘Wacko Jacko’s Hairball' is still available on the company's website, along with a ‘making of’ video showing the production of the roulette keepsake.
