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A casino which refuses to pay a jackpot

17 August 2008

A casino which refuses to pay a jackpotWhat would you do with a million dollars? It’s a question we’ve all pondered at one time or another. For Aurea Privee, she could smell the sweetness of the bills being fanned in front of her face. She was so close to a million dollars that she could literally taste it. But close only counts in horseshoes, unfortunately, and Privee’s million-dollar dream quickly turned into a poor man’s nightmare.

Aurea Privee walked into the Fiesta Casino in Henderson and started playing the penny video poker machines. The retired Privee had an ongoing relationship with the Fiesta casino; mostly of the give-give variety. Privee played the machines, but rarely won. Privee claims she spent twenty minutes between her regular bingo games dropping her pennies into a video poker machine. After a string of mediocre hands, Privee finally caught the hand of a lifetime.

The buzzers sounded, the coins dropped, and hearts raced as Privee had suddenly hit the one-million dollar and eight-two cent jackpot. Excited to be Nevada’s newest millionaire, Privee was attempting to retrieve her money when an agent from the Nevada Gaming Control Board showed up unexpectedly. Upon “careful” examination, the agent found that the machine’s maximum jackpot was supposedly set at $20,000, $980,000 shy of Privees prize. So, why would a machine set at $20,000 spit out $1,000,000? It’s a question Privee wanted answered.

After the casino’s insistence that the machine malfunctioned and that the $1,000,000 prize was a fabrication of Privee’s vision, her husband quickly showed the photos he had taken of the million-dollar jackpot in two places. The gaming control agent claimed that the real prize was only $800. Rather than take a lesser prize, Privee put her trust in attorney Nikolas Mastrangelo.

The attorney asks the question we all want to know. If the machine supposedly malfunctioned, what exactly was the malfunction? The fact that the casino cannot answer this question only lends credibility to multiple conspiracy theories which imply that casinos never intend for you to win a progressive jackpot. The fact that it happened wasn’t covered up at all. The casino stated that it was in fact a “malfunction.” Now, it’s up to the casino to correctly define the word malfunction to the rest of its casino goers – which doesn’t seem likely.

Finally, the casino blamed the malfunction on their lack of software upgrades, which makes it a human error (for not manually upgrading) and not a mechanical error, which means Privee is entitled to the prize; a taste of the casino’s own technicality medicine. But that’s not the case at all. The case seems clear-cut to many observes, and the line between malfunction and negligence is quite broad, yet too transparent to hide behind.

To date, Aurea Privee is still waiting for her case to be heard by the Gaming Board. Hypothetically, she stands a chance, but in actuality, she has the same chance of getting her money as she does of hitting another million-dollar progressive jackpot. If irony paid off, Privee would be set for life.

Tags: jackpot, video poker, aurea privee, fiesta casino, henderson, nevada gaming control board,
Posted In: Land Based Casinos, Jackpot Winners,
Readers Comments
terry s - 25 June 2009
Anyone whos played any video poker knows that a penny video poker machine will not pay $1 million for a royal flush
onetofind - 19 May 2009
what a bunch of crap!! Pay the lady, then figure out what happened to YOUR machine !! She won, period !!! pay her !
VAL - 18 March 2009
Casinos, in Nevada can do whatever they want, they control everything in the state. players don't stand a chance, the board is bought and sold, it exsists to give the player the facade of a fair game. Casinos at their heart are scammers looking for suckers. Why not pay her the million the press the story gets will pay for the jackpot many times over, but a casino's greed far exceeds that of a normal person. The way they see things the players always lose, no matter what it takes, they lose, and that folks is how it works. I think its gross, and i despise casinos for this attitude, so don't play.
VegasLocal - 23 January 2009
The Gaming Board in corrupt, it always has been
doze - 16 October 2008
man f*** the casinos. they probaly paid the judge off obviously she won the milly
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