Betfair Official Blog

Casino Refuses To Pay Out

New Mexico man wins a $1.5m jackpot only to be told that it was a computer error. Ouch!

GARY Hoffman is at the nickel slot machines at the Sandia Resort and Casino on an Indian reservation in New Mexico. It is Aug. 16, 2006. He hits the button. Wheels spin.

"I became ecstatic," he says. He has just won $1,597,244.10.

"I won money, fair and square, and I've been cheated out of my winnings," Hoffman tells us. And then something happens and he leaves with about $385 and a few free meals at the casino.

The casino claims it offered Hoffman the maximum payout of $2,500 for the Mystical Mermaid machine. It says Hoffman did not win. It was a computer error. Thank you, Mr Hoffman, for alerting us to the faulty machine. Here's a plate. Enjoy the buffet.

Hoffman says a casino employee "became quite intimidating with me, pointed his finger in my face and said, 'You didn't win. We're not paying you any money. Do you understand what I'm telling you? You're not getting any money.'"

The machine was checked. A technical report says Hoffman won an "erroneous jackpot".

"If he had gone into a bank and deposited $1,000 and got back a deposit slip that said a million dollars, he doesn't get to keep the balance," says Paul Bardacke, Sandia's lawyer. "It doesn't work that way. He knew it was wrong; he knew it was incorrect. That's why he took a picture of it immediately."

Hoffman appealed through the tribe's internal review process but - shock of shocks - he lost. Then he sued.

But we learn that a jury may never get chance to hear Hoffman's case. Native American tribes are treated as independent nations. New Mexico law generally does not allow tribes to be sued in a state court over a contract dispute, says Jeremy Kleiman, vice chairman of the commercial gaming subcommittee of the American Bar Association.

Says Sam Bregman, Hoffman's lawyer: "They spent millions of dollars getting these customers, these gamblers, to come in and gamble money, then when someone hits it big, they say, 'Sorry, we are not going to pay you. The jury is going to be outraged by that."

Mr Hoffman is single...