Two men from Manitoba have hired a lawyer and are threatening legal action after a Winnipeg casino refused to pay out more than $209,000 in slot-machine winnings.
The men were playing a computerized version of Keno last week when they matched all five numbers on the screen.
The machine said the win was worth a jackpot of $209,716.40. The casino said it was a software error.
“This type of malfunction is very rare and it’s unfortunate that the machine was being played and it malfunctioned like it did,” said Susan Olynik, a vice-president with the corporation.
How could the casino prove it was an error? If the casino admits it happens, even rarely, how could anyone distinguish an error from a legitimate win? And if the casino did want to limit how much a machine pays out, simply code that into the software, if award is > than x, show error message.
Check out Milo’s Cagematch thread here.
I spent 10 years working for casinos.
The most important question to ask is this: If the machine malfunctioned and didn’t pay out as much as it was supposed to……would you reimburse the player for his losses?
They should pay out, after all its their software that caused the error.
I think it was a repeated line in the movie: “The house always wins.:
The casino should pay the players what the machine said the payout was. Then the casino should seek reimbursement from the company that supplied/programmed/maintained the machine.
Say its not so, evil people in Canada. I thought Canada was a utopia, just like Europe. Why would a Candanian need with $200k anyway, doesn’t the wonderfull government provide their every need? I thought only greedy Americans cared about such things. Oh well.
Hmm reminds me of a few odd things in Canada….
ISP tech support dont work on weekends.
#6 Depends on your ISP, mine does. The head guy even has various error conditions programmed. If one of them arises, he gets an automated call on his cell phone, 24/7. islandnet.com
It strikes me that the quickest way they would know it was a “software error” is if the machine were programmed *never* to match all the numbers, in other words if the large payout is a fraud. Wouldn’t that be a can of worms more difficult to swallow than a measly $200 K payout? Crikey! Pay them, advertise it on the front page of the newspaper!
Those poor sucker gamblers are throwing away money, but don’t let it be worse than it says on the label!
RonD – you nailed it. In fact, if I owned a casino I’d have indemnification language right in the contract between me and the machine providers.
Ahhh, games of chance. I wonder why they call them that?
Hey, software errors happen — easy come, easy go! And if you’re ever caught counting cards in a casino, you’ll find yourself suffering a consciousness error, so you won’t remember how you ended up in that back alley. Apparently, the term “house edge” extends to all errors as well.
Would the casino give back the money if the players lost all their money? Their argument just doesn’t wash.
I’m a little disappointed that we don’t not KNOW the exact name of the casino as a place to avoid. This excuse is total bullshit.
An extreme example of Zen Level #3 of Programming. It doesn’t matter if its a software error or not, its not the customers problem. The players don’t care, there expectation is if they’re declared a winner they win.
Maybe I’ll use that excuse at the BlackJack table next time someone draws a 21. “Hey, that looks like a software error to me!”
#5, gquaglia: You must be a riot at parties.
Milo, so I’ve been told!
Funny that some seem to think this is a Canada problem. The last part of the report says that in Virginia a guy “won” 11 million and it was due to a software error and they settled for a little over a grand. So this Casino s doing no different then any other casino.
This is clearly illegal. How do we know the casino didn’t do this on purpose? Even if they didn’t intend to this is still one of the most obvious cases of bait and switch that I have ever seen.
If this casino makes their patrons doubt about big payouts, it’s surely going to cost them a whole lot more than $200,000 in lost business.
#5 …We get this “attack the straw man” from Limbaugh, O’Reilly and Coulter. Do you really need to do it here, too?
Like many informed people, I think some Europeans countries and Canada do social services better than America does… especially healthcare. But we don’t think those places are utopia. So please don’t argue with us on a point we’re not making, like the right wing media talking heads do.
Saw a show with this kind of thing happening. Most often the machine is checked by the local gaming comission and not the casino for errors.
The casino: McPhillips Street Station Casino
Whooo..swanky place, eh?
[edit: pls use tinyurl for long links]
Seems they only put a CANADIAN nickle into the slot.
“”The players should have known the $209,000 payout by the video lottery terminal (VLT) was an error because it’s unusual for a five-cent bet to garner that big a jackpot.
“That’s a lot of money for a nickel … I don’t think they should be paid,” said Brenda Parker, a gambler who spoke to the Sun outside the casino yesterday.
In fact, the maximum payout on the Game King machine the men were playing is $3,000, said Manitoba Lotteries Corp. spokeswoman Susan Olynik.
“This person was playing a five-cent bet,” said Olynik. “On that particular machine there’s no payout of $209,000.” “”
Seems to ME that this sounds like a weird glitch…..but, ‘come on, I was raised in Reno…and once in a while you’d hear about some old lady having a mechanical slot breaking and nickles would POUR OUT..like empty the machine…instead of the regular $7.50 jackpot. The little old lady wouldn’t be allowed to keep it. Instead they’d give her a free meal, maybe a free show, a LOT of free drink tokens…and make her the belle of the ball. Wonder what this casino did to tick off the two guys? Did they comp them at all?
Working for a slot machine company in Nevada (not the one that made this machine–Game King is made by IGT), I’ve read about a few lawsuits about machine tilts (a slot machine error). Most tilts of this kind are on reel machines where the reel’s motor has a problem and it stops on the wrong space, making the player think he has a winning combination. They are generally tossed out of court because printed on each machine (at least in Nevada) is the disclaimer that all tilts void play. By playing, you agree to those terms.
BUT. This is a case where the software was defective. A whole different situation. More of a product defect case. Should be interesting.
the casino is stupid they are gaining a reputation as a casino that won’t pay you out if you win. if this story keeps getting perpetuated, then, the casino should go out of business in pretty short order, because gamblers won’t play there.
Casinos are just places people go to be robbed slowly. If you gamble at a casino you get no sympathy from me. Duh da Duh.
“Most often the machine is checked by the local gaming comission and not the casino for errors.”
The gaming commission has experts in the code the machine uses? They can be 100% trusted?
Soon my bank will just start raiding my account for money when they are having a bad year and say that it was never there in the first place. It was a software glitch. Your receipt? Printed by the same glitch. The picture taken of you making a deposit at the ATM? Glitch!
There’s no end to this. This is a trial balloon being floated. They all copy each other.
I’ve given this official conspiracy status. There’s a thread in Cage Match if you’re interested.
Milo, your bank is ALREADY raiding your account. Check your fees and see if they make any sense at all? Have you noticed that all fees have gone up. Banks raked in $32 billion in account service fees last year, up from $21 billion in 1999. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/05_18/b3931085_mz020.htm
They’ll never be happy with just one way meetsy.