Thursday, October 25, 2007

You Won A Million Dollars, But We Are Not Paying!

Gary Hoffman is suing the Sandia Resort and Casino after finding out that his Million plus win on a nickel slot machine was said to be a machine malfunction. He has a picture of himself in front of the slot machine with it reading his grand total winning. Patrons congratulated him, a marriage proposal was made and even employees congratulated him, but that was all short lived. Soon after he was pulled into a room and told rather forcefully (according to Hoffman) that he did not win anything and the Casino was not paying him anything as the machine malfunctioned. Later he was offered a free meal and the machines maximum payout of $2,500.00.

On the machine is a disclaimer stating that no payout will be granted if the machine malfunctions. The Casino says it was a malfunction (there are two different opposing conclusions on how it malfunctioned) while Hoffman contends it went into bonus mode therefore allowing him to win more than the maximum.

Hoffman is going to take this to court but there is an issue with that; this hotel and casino is owned by an independent Indian nation. They are their own sovereign nation and on few accounts can they be taken before the US court system. So, there is no guarantee that Hoffman will even see his day in court to plead his case.

You can read more here.

Some questions:
-What are your thoughts on gambling?
-What do you think is the right thing to do here?
-Do you think Casino was right in not paying out the winnings?
-Does the disclaimer hold weight in this scenario?

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