Talking Stick slot-machine win is disputed

When the slot machine stopped spinning, the screen displayed three red double 7s in a row.

As music blared from the slot machine, Ryan Sherry, 47, stared at a prize chart to see what he had won.

The result was clear: $50,000 jackpot.

“I jumped up, I was so excited,” said Sherry, recalling that day in April at Scottsdale’s Talking Stick Resort and Casino. “I’ve never had that type of jackpot before. I was only going play a

couple hundred dollars, anyway, on the slot machine.”

Sherry’s excitement was soon replaced by confusion, as the machine displayed that his payout was only $4,000.

While he waited for it to pay out, he snapped a photo. It shows the double 7s lined up below the chart detailing prizes.

When Sherry pointed out the discrepancy, casino staff told him the machine had paid him correctly. And they couldn’t find a manager to answer his questions, the employees said.

Sherry took the money. He said he wanted to ensure he got something for his luck, even if it was far less than he thought he deserved.

The incident began four months of back-and-forth between Sherry, the casino and the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community’s tribal gaming office — a separate entity from the casino, but part of the same tribal government.

What he learned during that time was that Arizona’s 25 tribal-owned casinos operate in a patchwork of regulation in which patrons who think they’ve been wronged must convince the tribal nation to admit fault in order to receive compensation.

If the tribe refuses to admit liability, the only recourse is tribal court. There,the rules differ significantly from state or county courts, and from tribe to tribe.

Some gamblers have complained to the state Department of Gaming, but it has little oversight over disputes because of limits outlined in the state’s gaming compact as well as the tribes’ status as sovereign nations with their own laws and procedures. Although each of the 16 tribal nations operating casinos in Arizona has its own agreement with the state, the rules on dispute resolution are the same. But specific regulations are decided by the tribal governments.

The tribal gaming office told Sherry the same thing the casino had: The machine had paid out the correct amount.

The tribal gaming office’s investigator told Sherry a light bulb in the machine was broken, which made an orange 7 appear to be red. A replacement bulb had been on back order for eight weeks, Sherry said he was told.

“That doesn’t seem right,” he said. “If it’s showing one thing, the reason why you have pictures up here is to give you a snapshot of what you’re getting close to, or what you should be paid out. If it’s something different, the machine is not actually working properly.”

Sherry said it didn’t seem right that the machine was left on the floor while the part was on order, showing customers one result while the computer inside intended to display something different.

Letters to Sherry from the tribal gaming office didn’t mention the light bulb — only that his payout was correct.

The casino told that the gaming office ruled on the matter, and its machines are tested and regulated by the tribal gaming office and the state Department of Gaming.

Sherry said the state told him it doesn’t have jurisdiction to resolve his dispute.

The tribal gaming office didn’t respond to repeated interview requests for this article.

State Gaming Department spokeswoman Caroline Oppleman said the state does have some joint authority to regulate and inspect casinos and gaming machines. If a machine doesn’t work properly on inspection, for example, it cannot be used until the state ensures the problem is fixed. But that wouldn’t have happened in Sherry’s case, she said, because the broken light wouldn’t affect the machine’s function.

“What’s critical for patrons, and regulated, are accurate payouts and complete functionality of each gaming device,” she said. “A burned-out light bulb in any gaming device does not affect game play or outcome.”

The road leading to Talking Stick, just east of Loop 101, features a monument in the median with the Salt River tribal seal. Aside from that, motorists see little indication they’re in an area where Arizona and federal laws have limited reach.

Inside the casino, no prominent signs explain customers’ rights under tribal law or who regulates the casinos.

“When you and I go to Tennessee or we go to New York or something, you and I are now subject to the laws of those governments. And so when we go on reservations, we should not be surprised we’re subject to the laws of those governments,” said Bob Miller, a law professor at Arizona State University who serves as an appellate-court judge for the Pascua Yaqui Tribe south of Tucson. “The fact that tribes are governments is set out in the Constitution.”

And as it is with the state and federal government, tribal governments can’t be sued except when they allow themselves to be sued. It’s what’s known as sovereign immunity.

(States have waived their sovereign immunity in many cases, but in Arizona, it still applies when public employees injure someone unintentionally while carrying out their duties.)

In general, lawsuits involving tribal nations aren’t resolved in state or federal court unless the tribe waives its immunity in that case.

But unlike the state of Arizona or the federal government, tribal governments own and operate casinos, and the profits are a vital source of revenue.

“They have no tax base,” Miller said of Arizona’s reservations, where poverty rates are up to five times higher than in the state as a whole. “The only way tribal governments can get the money to operate their various programs — their courts, their police, their house programs, etc. — is if they are making some kind of profit off of some kind of business.”

Some lawyers contend the problem for casino customers is that the tribal nations have too much at stake financially when patrons have disputes, and immunity can allow tribes to avoid oversight and accountability when consumer and business issues arise.

“There should be some mechanism for disputes to be resolved that’s not so difficult, because the state is granting a benefit to the tribes by allowing them to engage in gaming in the first place,” said Ali Farhang, an Tucson-based attorney who has represented clients in tribal courts.

While the compact requires the creation of an independent gaming office, its only requirement is that no gamingoffice employees be employed by the casino, so tribal nations are left to regulate their own businesses as they see fit.

“If it isn’t in the compact, it really limits our authority of what we can and can’t do,” said Aiden Fleming, the Arizona Department of Gaming’s assistant director.

Yet consumers still turn to the state when problems arise at tribal casinos, even though there’s not much the state can do. Department data shows 37 inquiries since 2012, ranging from jackpot disputes to accusations of “rigged” machines and questionable behavior on the part of casino staff and a tribal council.

Other than giving it the power to inspect machines, the compact allows the Gaming Department to certify the casino’s compliance with gaming-compact requirements regarding:

❚ Gaming licenses for institutions and individual casino employees.

❚ Casino vendors.

❚ Health and safety codes.

The state can force a tribal nation into an arbitration process if there’s an issue the two sides can’t resolve, but that rarely happens, Fleming said.

“We have a really great working relationship with the tribal gaming offices,” he said. “You can get an overzealous regulator, and they’ll want to encroach, do more. The compact limits our approach, and that’s the deal that the state has made with each tribe to respect their sovereignty.”

For casino disputes of $500 or more, customers can file a complaint with the tribal gaming office, like Sherry did in his dispute with Talking Stick. If unsatisfied with the result, they can appeal and eventually file suit in tribal court.

Sherry said by the time his appeals had run their course, he had lost trust in the tribe to fairly judge his claim because of its changing story and the incentive to protect the casino’s profit.

If he had sued in tribal court, he would have had to find a lawyer licensed to practice law on the reservation before judges employed by the tribal government.

“If they are judging themselves, what type of result are you going to get? You’re not going to get anywhere,” Sherry said.

Mary Dennis, 81, said she enjoyed going to casinos for more than playing the games.

She liked to “see the people cry, see the people laugh, see the people enjoy winning,” said Dennis, who has lived in the city of Maricopa for a decade. “If I won $100, I was enjoying it. We’d leave and then maybe go get something to eat.”

She said the Gila River Indian Community’s Vee Quiva Casino, just west of South Mountain, was her favorite because of the food. But she hasn’t been able to go to any casinos since her fall at Vee Quiva in December.

Like Sherry, she thought her case was foolproof. Her knees were badly bruised after she tripped on a rug near a bathroom and fell.

She said she’s still in pain 11 months later with what a doctor told her were two torn meniscuses and a torn ACL.

She thought her issue would have a straightforward remedy: File a claim and prove she was injured on the property. The casino’s liability coverage could have taken care of the rest. She has received nothing.

“I’m not lying. I don’t want millions and millions of dollars,” she said. “I just want something that relieves my pain and lets me be my old self again — take my dog out for a little walk, go out for a movie. I haven’t been for a movie since December.

“It’s heck just living in the bedroom.”