Ask the Slot Expert: Does a slot machine malfunction when it is not configured properly?

I received an email from a paralegal asking if I would speak with her about a denied jackpot case in which her attorney was representing the person who was denied the jackpot. We set up a time for her to call me.

The appointed time came and went with no call from her. Fifteen minutes late and still no call. I gave up after 30 minutes. Never heard from her again.

Maybe just as well. I have no patience with cases in which a machine displays a message saying a player won more than was possible to win on the machine. I also have no patience with how the media portrays the casinos in these cases or the way they took my comment out of context and made it seem like I thought the player in this case deserved to be paid. (As I recall, when I said, "If the machine tells you you won, I think you've won," I was referring to winning combinations that land on the payline as a result of a valid wager. I did not think the man in this case deserved to be paid over $1 million.)

Let me give you the details. Man sits down to play a Mystical Mermaid slot machine at the Sandia Resort and Casino on an Indian reservation in New Mexico. The machine carries a sign saying that the maximum payout is $2500 (and, of course, malfunctions void all winnings).

The player claims he triggered the bonus round. At some point the machine displays a message indicating that he won $1,597,244.10. A pretty good trick on a machine with a maximum payout of $2500, though the player claims that more can be won in the bonus round.

I would like to have asked the player what the sequence of winning combinations were that led to such a large payout.

As I said last week, memory got corrupted on the machine and that led to the erroneous winnings amount.

In any case, the player's expectation was to win $2500 on a spin. If the player wanted to win millions, he would have been playing a wide-area progressive. Standalone machines rarely (if ever) have jackpots that large and, if they do, they will certainly advertise the jackpot on the machine. They won't just display a message saying you're a millionaire now.

The player was offered a PR jackpot of $2500, the max jackpot on the machine. A fair offer, I think.

My position in these cases is that the player can't expect to be paid more than they expected to win from the machine.

I recently found a case that may make me restate my position.

A lady played a $5 Double Top Dollar slot at the Imperial Palace in Biloxi, MS. The lady made a $10 wager and three Double Diamond symbols landed on the payline.

According to the paytable on the belly glass, that was the top-paying combo at $8000.

The scrolling display on the machine, however, said she had won 200,000 credits -- $1,000,000.

I'll cut to the chase. IGT did not configure the machine correctly.

The analysis of the machine showed that it was configured as a stand-alone progressive and a top jackpot of $1,000,000.

You might argue that the lady should get the million because it's a progressive and other players have funded it.

When have you ever seen a progressive jackpot with a round number? I think the mil was the reset number and the technician never configured the machine to have a progressive rake.

The machine did not malfunction. It did what it was configured to do. This was a case of PEBCAC: problem exists between chair and computer.

The case went through the courts, which eventually found that the lady was entitled to the $8000 advertised on the machine for landing the jackpot combination. The finding was based on contract law. The player agreed to make a bet and casino agreed to pay out certain amounts when certain events happened as detailed in the paytable.

I think paying the lady $8000 was correct. I know from personal experience that vendors don't have to be disadvantaged when a clerk makes an honest mistake.

Actually, I think she should have gotten the $8000 and some additional money or benefits as a gesture of good will, but courts can't award money for PR.

I'm going to revise my position slightly. A player has no right to win an amount of money that cannot be won on a machine.

In my first example, there was no way to win a million on the machine. He had no case for claiming that amount of money.

In the second, there was a way, inadvertently, to win a million on that machine. We can't just dismiss the claim out of hand.

If you would like to see more non-smoking areas on slot floors in Las Vegas, please sign my petition on change.org.

Send your slot and video poker questions to John Robison, Slot Expert™, at slotexpert@slotexpert.com.

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Send your slot and video poker questions to John Robison, Slot Expert™, at slotexpert@slotexpert.com. Because of the volume of mail I receive, I regret that I can't reply to every question.

Copyright © John Robison. Slot Expert and Ask the Slot Expert are trademarks of John Robison.