Grandma sues casino over $52 million computer glitch

Not so fast: A woman who thought she hit a $52 million jackpot got just a $10 giftcard and a free room instead. Picture: PHIL WILLIAMS Source: News Corp Australia

DING ding ding! When an 87-year-old grandmother saw a “bonus award” of more than $52 million (US$41 million) flash up on a slot machine she thought she had hit the big time.

But when Illinois woman Pauline McKee and her daughter when to collect their fortune, they were told ‘computer says no’.
Iowa’s Supreme Court ruled Friday that the Isle Hotel Casino didn’t have to pay as Ms McKee didn’t hit the jackpot, despite what the screen told her. She actually netted just $2.36 based on how the symbols aligned on the Miss Kitty game, the court said.
That’s because rules of the game said the maximum winning was $12,742 (US$10,000) with no bonus awards.
Justice Edward Mansfield said the rules on a touch screen amount to a contract between the casino and the player and it doesn’t matter that McKee didn’t read them.
“Any message appearing on the screen indicating the patron would receive a $52 million bonus was a gratuitous promise and the casino’s failure to pay it could not be challenged as a breach of contract,” Mansfield wrote in a ruling that dismissed a lawsuit filed by McKee.

The casino had been warned the game may malfunction but failed to disable old software. Source: Supplied

The casino could have been forced into bankruptcy if the decision had gone the other way, said one of its attorneys, Stacey Cormican. A $52 million payout would amount to about half of the gross revenue the casino generated last year.
Cormican said the ruling will ensure fairness in Iowa’s large gambling industry.
“Casinos are required to post rules and follow those rules. If either the patrons or casinos could change the rules in the middle of the game, it would be absolutely chaos,” she said, adding that computer glitches are rare.
McKee, of Antioch, Illinois, was playing the penny slot machine with relatives during a family reunion when she thought she hit the jackpot. When she and her daughter summoned an attendant, casino officials started to investigate, giving her a $12 card to play while she waited and eventually comping her and her relatives’ rooms.
The casino requested a review by the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission, which sent the machine’s hardware and software to a laboratory for analysis.
Testing concluded the machine had given an erroneous bonus message. The game’s manufacturer, Aristocrat Technologies Inc, warned casinos in 2010 that machines using that hardware were susceptible to displaying mistaken “legacy bonus” awards on the screen. A company bulletin told customers it was developing a new hardware system and recommended they disable legacy bonusing to prevent the error — something the Waterloo casino didn’t do.
The commission concluded the casino didn’t have to pay because of the glitch. A sign on the game warned, “Malfunction voids all pays and plays.”
McKee sued in 2012. Her lawyers disputed that the machine malfunctioned, arguing that jurors should decide. A judge threw out the case before trial.