Posted on 11/09/2015 7:44:30 AM PST by Timber Rattler
Veronica Castillo is still pretty upset. She hit the jackpot at a Lucky Eagle Casino slot machine and won $8 million.
Except the casino said it was a machine malfunction and gave her $80.
The mortgage loan officer took her mother to the casino in Rochester, Washington last weekend. She put $100 in a machine and hit the jackpot — she thought.
"I was very excited, happy," she told KOIN 6 News. "Then I couldn't believe it."
The casino staff came over and told her the machine malfunctioned.
"They shut off the machine, took it away, printed out a ticket and gave me $80."
(Excerpt) Read more at koin.com ...
We live an hour down the interstate from this Indian Casino. My parents live much closer and my mom and dad go there all the time; my mom says for the good buffet. It is one of the nicer places in the area. And admittedly they do have a good buffet. She and my aunt have spent literally thousands and thousands of dollars there on the slot machine. My aunt has a genuine gambling addiction, my mom does most of her “gambling” online using no real money is changing hands.
Yes it was a “nickel” machine. This means if you play one line it costs you a nickel. I don't know what the maximum number of lines that can be played on this machine at a time are. My mom likes to play about a quarter at a time on these machines. The maximum payout if you were playing all of the lines at once (apparently about a dollar a spin) was $20,000. The maximum payout on this machine with the amount that this lady was paying (probably a quarter) was apparently $6000. (This is from the British link above.)
All the casinos in our area seem to cater to older folks. The one nearest our house has a great buffet that is very reasonably priced. My wife and I used to sit next to each other and play one of the penny machines together after we had stuffed ourselves. We would play a maximum of one dollar per visit. Surprisingly it often took quite a while to lose our dollar playing a penny at a time.
Our favorite machines had these bonus rounds that would make enjoyable dinging noises for a minute or two with lights going off and make you feel like you had really won the jackpot. We “won” five dollars on several occasions and then left while we were ahead. We only went to the buffet about once a week. So we were actually still a couple bucks ahead when we finally just got bored with the machines and the buffet and now we play them only when we take my mom to the buffet for her birthday.
she should sue them for 16 million dollars- see how fast they pay out the 8 million
She got a better deal than Custer.
Assuming this is an Indian casion, a lawsuit is a no-go.....they have their own little world.
Lottery winners in Illinois don’t get paid and now this. Don’t understand why there are no payouts on the big money ones. The economy is roaring upward and all is well per Obama so everybody and every entity has a lot of money - right? /s/
What about all the money that is in 401(k)’s, checking and savings accounts? That’s all there and readily available for withdrawal - right? /s/
We have a friend who has been taking care of her elderly mother who seems normal, but has some cognitive problems and nearly burned the house down on a couple of occasions while she was at work. She tried to drop her off at senior daycare centers, but her mom was unhappy about it and couldn't get along with the other people and kept getting booted out for causing trouble.
Finally the day after her mom had gotten kicked out of another senior day care center she was in a real bind and dropped her off at one of the indian casinos on her way into work. She gave her mom the $40 she had in her purse so she wouldn't go hungry and told her she would be back at the end of the day. Her mom was really happy to be at the casino.
She didn't have any trouble finding her mother when she got back. Her mom still had a few bucks left and she had managed to make an elderly friend who had also been dropped off by her daughter. She started leaving her at the casino every day. If you play the slots for more than two hours they give you a free pass for the buffet. Her mom now has a whole group of friends who spend the day playing the penny machines and eating at the buffet. Our friend says it costs her less than the senior day care and the casino staff know her mother and make her feel welcome. If anything goes wrong with anyone in her little group the casino just calls 911. She said it was just like dropping her kid off at school. She says there is a line of people dropping their elderly parents off in the morning at this particular casino.
Most of the people you find in the indian casinos around here are 70 or above. They cater to this age group and for the most part it seems like most of them are having a good time. It almost seems like a public service. I think most of the people playing a penny at a time have no expectation of winning big.
That’s very interesting and might explain the people I see playing pennies (always the older people). I never thought of it that way before.
ah yep- didn’t think of that-
I live near this casino. It’s amusing to visit, because it is literally located way out in the boondocks in the middle of nowhere. Drive miles through pretty, purely rural countryside, smell the pungent odor of manure, turn a corner, and all of a sudden you are at this casino. Very surrealistic.
The way these slots work, you buy a card from a machine. Your results a determined the moment you buy the card. Then you insert the card in the slot machine. The machine is just a bells and whistles way to relay to you the already determined result contained on the card.
So, when the casino claims the machine malfunctioned, they are undoubtedly really claiming that the machine did not correctly display the result predetermined from the card.
On the infrequent occasions I visit the casino (often with a friend who likes casinos) I never play slots. Only craps, which has the only true odds, no house advantage bet in a casino (The casino makes money because you have to make a slightly losing bet in order to make the true odds bet) Also, blackjack (where if you learn and play basic strategy, the house advantage is less than 1%).
I expect, on average, to lose a small amount of money each time I go. I just consider that the cost of the entertainment. I never lose more than what I would make working an extra hour, or at most two, at work. So it’s ok as occasional light entertainment.
This casino is a tribal casino. So, if this lady wants to sue the casino, she will probably have to sue in tribal court. Good luck with that.
Tribal courts, and tribal rights in general, are a joke. I personally believe the US government should unilaterally abrogate all native American treaty rights, and set up a commission to determine the cash compensation to be payed in lieu of those rights. Not that I expect our government to ever do something so sensible.
Had a wealthy friend who used to play the horses- Had me go to the counter for a trifecta with a list of the horses in order- Handed the clerk the paper with the names on it- put $2500 down on the bet- didn’t check the tickets. Got back to the table where friend was sitting, gave him the tickets- race started, and we hit- big time- went to the counter to collect, and the clerk had put the wrong horse in for one of the positions (can’t remember now which one)- A horse that wasn’t even on the list- Of course the clerk blamed us for ‘not checking the tickets’ (Which really we should have)
Bah- Very bad day!
We have dozens of indian casinos in our area. When I was still working as a fire lieutenant we had one half a mile from the station. We went there frequently for elderly people who had been there all day playing the penny machines who had forgotten to drink enough fluids and passed out or got sick from being dehydrated.
In the beginning my first thought was that they were drunk old people when that wasn’t the case we would think that they were such compulsive gamblers who were so obsessed that they forgot to eat and drink. When my wife told me what her friend was doing with her mother it all made more sense. I confirmed this with the casino staff and they sincerely started making an effort to make sure that their elderly regulars were staying hydrated. After that the number of these calls dropped off dramatically.
The same thing can happen with younger people and video games. Modern slot machines are simply a variant on video games. It’s amazing how video games can be so absorbing that people forget to eat or drink.
The mafia never spends its own money. Organized crime wins again. And it doesn’t matter if the casino was Indian-owned or somewhere else, it’s mafia.
That's a fairly accurate description, actually. If we tried something like that in the private sector, we'd be up on charges of securities fraud or some such thing.
That's a fairly accurate description, actually. If we tried something like that in the private sector, we'd be up on charges of securities fraud or some such thing.
We paint with broad brushes here on Free Republic.
I know this because I live in California so I must be a liberal loon.
freedom’s a hard thing man :)
in communist countries, you can’t screw up decisions because you’re not allowed to make them.
but then you’re not free, which is awful
what a paradox :)
Yeah it’s like buying a lotto ticket in Illinois!
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