Casino claims woman's $8M jackpot was machine malfunction
Casino spokesman Gary Bitner said the casino is confident there was a malfunction because that particular slot machine's top prize is a mere $99,000. So will Seebeck at least be getting that much? A Resorts World spokesperson says the slot machine was having an 'obvious malfunction,' and the New York State Gambling Commission says the machine bore a disclaimer reading, 'Malfunctions void.
Bob Massi discusses your rights when playing a slot machine
An Oregon gambler said her excitement quickly turned to anger after a slot machine revealed that she won $8 million, but casino staffers said it was broken, and refused to give her the prize.
Veronica Castillo said employees at the Lucky Eagle Casino in Rochester, Washington turned off the machine and gave her just $80. She had inserted $100, Q13 Fox reports.
'Somebody's going to have to account for why this happened,' Fox News Legal Analyst Bob Massi told Fox & Friends. He said an attorney could likely challenge the casino's claim.
In a news release, casino officials said the malfunction was evident. For example, they say the machine's maximum jackpot is just $20,000, which gamblers can see before they insert money.
Many casinos reportedly display notices that claim no cash is awarded during equipment malfunctions. Castillo says that's unfair.
'To me, that's deceiving, it's cheating, it might even be fraudulent,' she added.
Lord of the ocean slot. The cards are always stacked in favor of the casino. Casinos exist for one reason, and one reason alone: to take your money. They do it legally, even if it's under cloudy circumstances.
Consider the case of an Alabama man who put $5 into an electronic bingo machine at the Wind Creek Casino in Montgomery, Alabama. The casino is on tribal land operated by the Poarch Band of Creek Indians. To the gambler's amazement, 'several noises, lights, and sirens were activated' when the machine announced that Jerry Rape had hit The Big One. The bingo machine indicated a jackpot of $459,000, then $918,000, and finally settled on a 'payout multiplier' of $1,377,000, according to the gambler's lawsuit.
The casino took Rape's payout ticket and made him wait for about 24 hours before saying no dice. He wasn't getting the monster payout. The machine, he was told by the tribe's casino, had 'malfunctioned.' (PDF)
It gets worse
The gambler sued the casino in the tribal court of the Poarch Band of Creek Indians. But the suit was dismissed. The court declared that sovereign immunity prevailed—that the tribe was an independent nation and immune from being sued.
'They said they were immune to any kind of fraud that I made in the complaint,' the gambler's attorney, Matt Abbott, told Ars in a telephone interview. 'They said rules don't apply to them, [and] 'have a nice day.'
Advertisement Unable to lodge a claim in tribal court, Rape rolled the dice with Alabama's state courts and sued the tribe there. On Friday, seven years after Rape thought he had hit the jackpot, the Alabama Supreme Court ruled that Rape could not sue the tribe in state court—the proper venue was tribal court. That's because the Poarch Band of Creek Indians is a nation of itself, and that's where disputes occurring on that land should be litigated, the court found.
The Alabama high court noted that it found itself in a 'Catch-22' of sorts. It said it couldn't decide the dispute even if the tribe wasn't entitled to sovereign immunity.
'The activity out of which Rape's claim arose, however, was gambling. If it occurred on land within the regulatory and adjudicative jurisdiction of the State of Alabama, that activity was illegal. Specifically, that land is located in Elmore County and, therefore, is not located in one of the counties in Alabama where even the game commonly and traditionally known as bingo is permitted,' the court ruled. (PDF)
It is well established that this Court will not aid a plaintiff seeking to recover under an illegal contract but, instead, will simply leave the parties where it finds them.
This is the third time we've seen a gambler hit an enormous jackpot only to be told that it won't be paid because the jackpot was a result of an electronic 'malfunction.'
Meanwhile, the Alabama gambler's attorney, Abbott, told Ars that his client's legal avenues have now been exhausted. 'It's over,' he said.
Slot Machine Malfunction Lawsuit
The tribe said the Alabama high court did the right thing. 'We are pleased that the Court affirmed the ruling in favor of the Tribe,' spokeswoman Sharon Delmar said.