An attorney from downstate Illinois won a jackpot in a slot machine in a casino on St. Thomas. Per the linked story (and several others from Googling “Alvin Paulson lawsuit”), he claimed the casino management came off, immediately declared the machine was faulty, in which case the win is voided. They sent him on his merry way, not only without his $5.15 million, but always without the $16.50 in credit remaining in the machine. So he’s suing.

From my experience working for WMS Gaming, and testing slot machine, I tend to believe this machine was actually faulty, for three reasons:

1) For a 25-cent machine, $5.15 million is an INSANE jackpot. That’s as big as I’ve heard of, even for $1 machines. A jackpot that size is usually reserved for huge casinos, with hundreds of machines on a progressive network. The casino at the Ocean Club in St. Thomas isn’t large enough to even merit mention on their Web site.

2) According to the complaint, it states:

“In plain view of numerous witnesses, an employee of defendants proceeded to turn the machine off while it was still adding up credits”

The machine isn’t going to sit there and try to ring up 20 million credits. That would take a VERY long time!

3) When a machine hits a jackpot, it doesn’t ring up quarters (as in his complaint) or start spitting out quarters, as he claims in the AP article. Instead, the machine acknowledges the jackpot to the player, a white light flashes on top of the game cabinet, and the machine locks up. The casino is required to verify the win, process paperwork, and verify the validity of the machine’s mechanics and game software. Then, and only then, will a player get a payout, and the machine be put back in service.

I’m also curious why, if he was cheated out of $5.15 million, he’s only suing for $74,000.