Posted on 03/30/2010 8:02:27 PM PDT by Fractal Trader
When the lights and bells went off at a slot machine at the Fortune Valley Casino, in Central City, Colo., Louise Chavez thought she had the win of a lifetime -- $42 million.
Louise Chavez was told that her slot machine mistakenly spewed the money. But after the casino claimed the machine malfunctioned, all Chavez got was a few dollars, some free meals and a room for the night.
Colorado gaming officials are investigating the incident, but said it could be nothing more than an unfortunate computer glitch. Chavez may not see a dime.
"I put my money in there," Chavez told "Good Morning America." "Whatever I won, I should get... There are dreams and there are things I'd like to do -- helping my family, helping my kids. That's why I'm disappointed. I just don't know."
The Denver woman can remember all too clearly when she thought her life had changed.
"All of a sudden I saw the light come on on top of the machine," Chavez told "Good Morning America." "I'm like, 'Oh, my God! Oh, my God!' I'd never had this feeling before in my life, never."
The payout she was expecting? $42,949,673. She said she usually makes about $12,000 per year as an in-home personal care provider.
But champagne and caviar dreams quickly evaporated. Casino employees told Chavez the slot machine had malfunctioned.
(Excerpt) Read more at abcnews.go.com ...
I didn’t know that. Course I don’t trust the guys that run the regular casinos either, so they won’t see me in either one.
I dont trust the guys that run the regular casinos either, so they wont see me in either one.
Again, NOT INDIAN CASINOS. We have some of those in Southern Colorado but Central City is not one of those places.
Colorado has very permissive gaming laws and they just loosened them even more last July. Roulette, craps, whatever is permissable in the designated mining towns.
Were I on a civil jury I’d find for the woman.
Bingo!
I bought a nice refurbished slot machine from a Las Vegas company. The owner told me he will not buy a used slot machine, for refurbishing and resale, from the Reservations because their processor cards are illegal in Nevada and can not be brought across state lines. It seems the Nevada gaming commission knows the truth.
Yes, when have you last heard of a casino calling up some poor loser and telling them they checked the machines and found out they malfunctioned and failed to make a payout?
But the city lives to serve the casinos.
This isn’t the first time a Casino has pulled that crap.
Imagine if every single player, after each pull that lost, called the casino operator over to check and make sure the machine didn’t malfunction.
I figure she is lawyered up already!
The only game I play at Indian casinos are texas holdem poker, and even then the rakes are usually a ripoff.
At least in Vegas there’s some standards where they have to give out pay tables and so on.
Agree. As I see it, the only way they could know it was a “malfunction” would be if they knew the machine was rigged to NEVER pay out the grand prize.
I also find it suspicious that there were no details about the nature of the supposed “malfunction”.
These things are crocks. If there is no record of them identifying a malfunctioning machine and giving everyone that played while it malfunctioned their money back then they should have to pay out.
This is one area I wouldn’t mind to see some regulation. Gambling is already heavily regulated, so it’s not that much more to insist if a machine says payout you payout. This will force the casinos to buy better systems and never to hide behind the malfucntioning excuse. Only if fraud is involved will it override a malfunction.
Good point. I’m pretty sure almost any jury would side in her favor. Unless it is on the Indian Reservation and made up of the locals and they all work in the casino.
I think when someone makes so little money and has not real skills (for whatever reason) they see gambling as their only way out. And for this woman it appears it may have worked (assuming she sues and wins).
Your ignorance of slot machine gambling is showing. You jumped to the conclusion that this woman was gambling $20 a spin on a slot machine simply because the casino gave her back $20. I’ll give you even money that that was not the case.
First of all, they likely gave her back $20 because that’s the last bill denomination the machine recorded as being put in. She might well have put three $20 bills into that machine in succession, but unless she was playing with a tracking card, she can’t prove that. So they gave her back what they knew for certain she put in.
Second of all, the vast majority of the progressive machines (which pay off multi-million wins) are one cent machines with a min. bet of one cent and a max bet of $5.00 per spin. Moreover, anyone who plays the slots more than once in a lifetime understands that you have NO chance of winning the maximum jackpot unless you are wagering the maximum bet (it says so right on the machine). Consequently, if this woman was wagering less than the max bet, she couldn’t have REASONABLY expected to win the $42 mil. She would lose a civil suit if the casino produces the records showing that she was making small wagers. The only way she MIGHT prevail in court is IF the records show that she was making max bets. Given her income, I think that’s doubtful.
BTW, slot machines are capable of tracking every bill/ticket in, every wager on every spin, and if the players use their player’s card (in order to receive comps) they can track every dime the player wagered, won, and lost. Say what you will about the gaming commission siding with the casino, I can assure you that the commission would have demanded all of the electronic records for that machine and scrutinized them for proof that the machine did, indeed, malfunction. No maximum bet = no $42 mil.
But since the woman had lost hundreds of dollars trying, a few cheap meals along with enough money to get home was given her. Wooo-HOOO
The Gaming Department says the total jackpot she could have won playing the penny slots was about $250,000 that’s on a state-wide progressive pot system.
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