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Thursday, July 19, 2007
Ind. Law - "Caesars' mistake could cost players "
Grace Schneider reports today in the Louisville Courier Journal about: "A faulty slot machine called Easy Money [that] cost Caesars Indiana nearly half a million dollars a year ago, giving big payoffs to gamblers when it showed 10 times the credit for each dollar they inserted." Caesars only discovered the problem after one of the users told it of the problem. The Indiana Gaming Commssion "fined the casino $15,000 for failing to follow procedures to properly test the machine." More from the story:
Harrison County Prosecutor Dennis Byrd will decide in the next few weeks whether to file charges against any of the 30 or so patrons -- some of whom walked off with thousands of dollars -- and press for restitution. * * *The problem came to light in August when the casino reported to Byrd's office and state police that it had lost $487,000 over the July 21 weekend to patrons who used a slot machine installed with new software that wasn't designed for U.S. currency.
Caesars found out when a Louisville couple noticed that the slot machine had registered $200 when they slid in $20. They alerted Caesars employees, but by then more than two-dozen gamblers had played the device.
Kathryn Ford, who reported the problem while visiting the riverboat with her husband David, said in an interview that one young woman leaned across her while she was seated at the machine, put in a $100 bill and took off with a $1,000 cash voucher.
"People were getting caught up in the excitement of the moment," Ford said.
Ford said in an interview that she was surprised that a criminal investigation was under way, and that she thinks that it's unfair to go after patrons. When a slot machine jams and gamblers lose money, they don't get it back, she said.
"It doesn't work in the reverse," Ford said. "They need to forget it and move on."
Posted by Marcia Oddi on July 19, 2007 07:18 AM
Posted to Indiana Law