Why Oklahoma Casino Had the Right Not to Pay $8.5 Million Slot Win — Lawyer Explains

6.03.2020, 18:47

Michigan lawyer and YouTuber Letho’s Law sheds light on Oklahoma casino’s decision not to pay $8,469,498.95 USD to slot machine jackpot winner.

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you probably heard Maribel Sanchez’s story. A couple of weeks ago, she won a jackpot worth $8.5 million at a Lucky 7s slot machine, but the casino refused to pay her, saying there had been a hardware malfunction. The story sparked fierce debate both inside and outside the gambling community. Consumer protection advocates cry foul, saying that the woman should be paid her winnings. Lawyers, on the other hand, say the issue is much more complicated and nuanced. So let’s take a look at what really happened in Newcastle Casino and uncover the truth.

The Sequence of Events

According to FOX25, Maribel Sanchez entered Newcastle Casino at seven in the morning to try her luck on a Liberty 7s slot machine. She set her wager amount at a dollar and twenty-five cents per spin. After a few rounds, she hit the jackpot and the machine told her she won $8,469,498.95 USD. Excited about her win, Sanchez took a picture of the winning graphic using her phone. In her mind, she was already thinking about how she would spend her money on achieving her life-long dream of buying a house.

That’s where things took a strange turn. Just after she took the picture, the slot machine turned off. A few moments later, Sanchez was approached by members of the casino staff. Instead of paying Sanchez her $8.5 million, the casino gave her back the $14.50 she had spent at the slot machine and bid her farewell. 

“They told her we’re not going to pay you. It was an error, ” Sanchez’s lawyer, Bill Zuhdi, explains.

Furious about the injustice of the situation, Sanchez contacted Oklahoma’s FOX 25 news station, which reported on the event through their website and Twitter account. FOX 25 reporters then contacted the venue and the machine’s manufacturer, but neither gave any concrete information on what exactly happened.

Sanchez then went on to contact attorney Bill Zuhdi. On Monday, March 2, the lawyer filed a formal notice of prize claim in order to move the legal case forward.

How Modern Video Slots Work

So what exactly happened there and why doesn’t the casino want to pay up? In order to understand this, you need to understand how slot machines work these days.

Unlike their ancestors, modern slot machines are not purely random. Regardless of whether they display the results on a screen or through physical reels, all modern slots are fully computerized, networked, and algorithm-controlled. As a side effect of this, the payout percentages and jackpot payouts can easily be adjusted by the casino.

Because of this inherent degree of control, the system can be easily abused by unscrupulous casino staff members. 

Slot Machine Tampering

In one of his videos, Michigan lawyer Steve Lehto, who runs a popular YouTube channel called Lehto’s Law, recalled a case from a few years ago. During court testimony, the defendant confessed to having used his access to the machines in order to configure them to pay large sums of money at certain times. His accomplices would then play the machines until winning. The money was then split 50/50.

And this situation isn’t in any way unique. Those who follow gambling news closely will have heard of several such cases that happened in the last few years.

In order to fight this type of malicious code meddling, casinos verify all payouts with their information on when wins should have been paid out. If the system sees a big win, but the server says that it wasn’t supposed to happen, they shut down the machine and tell the user there was a machine malfunction.

What Does the Law Say About Slot Machine Winnings?

So how are these ‘machine malfunctions’ interpreted by law? If you didn’t do anything wrong and played according to all rules, why wouldn’t you get paid? After all, it’s the casino’s fault, not yours, that such a situation happened. Let’s explore.

As explained by lawyer Steve Lehto in his video on the 8.5 million dollar scandal, in recent years, more and more new gambling laws have been coming into force, and most of them aren’t all that consumer-friendly. Lehto says that, because the people running land-based casinos have a lot of money, they can essentially have the laws written in their favor. Lehto gives the following example:

“If you’re counting cards at a blackjack table in Las Vegas they can come up to you, say you’re cheating, and kick you out” despite the fact that all you are doing is being a good player and “figuring things out”.

So, essentially, if you’re playing offline blackjack and you’re bad, you’re free to lose as much money as you want. But once you get good enough and start to understand such things as basic strategy and card counting, the casino has the right to ban you from their venue.  

State and federal laws give casinos similar rights in other games as well.

So where does that leave Sanchez? In an uncomfortable place, that’s for sure. The casino reimbursed her for the $14.50 she spent on the ‘malfunctioned’ machine and pretended nothing wrong had happened. But something did happen. The machine outright told her she won 8.5 million dollars. And, at least according to Sanchez’s lawyer, the casino must honor this offer, because she did nothing wrong and played by the rules.

We’ll keep you updated on this story as it develops. In the meanwhile, if you want to make sure you get paid on every win, you’re probably better off sticking to online slot machines. Unlike land-based video slots, these are operated off-side by the service providers and cannot be tampered with.