Granny’s $ 41m prize too good to be true

WHEN an 87- year- old Illinois grandmother bet 25¢ in an Iowa poker machine in 2011, she thought she’d hit it big. The screen said: “The reels have rolled your way! Bonus Award – $ 41,797,550.16.”

Pauline McKee and her daughter excitedly summoned casino employees to collect what they thought was a $ 41.8 million jackpot.

But state officials later concluded the award was a computer glitch and that the Isle Hotel Casino in Waterloo didn’t have to pay. And the Iowa Supreme Court has ruled that Ms McKee didn’t hit any jackpot – no matter what the screen told her. Her good fortune was actually worth only $ 1.85 based on how the symbols aligned on the Miss Kitty game, the court said.

Game rules said the maximum award was $ 10,000 and allowed for no bonus awards, Justice Edward Mansfield wrote for the unanimous seven- member court.

The rules and pay table, which were available on a touch screen, amount to a contract between the casino and the player and it doesn’t matter that Ms McKee them.

“Any message appearing on the screen indicating the patron would receive a $ 41 million bonus was a gratuitous promise and the casino’s failure to pay it could not be challenged as a breach of contract,” Justice Mansfield wrote in a ruling that dismissed a lawsuit filed by Ms McKee.

The casino could have been forced into bankruptcy if the decision had gone the other way, said one of its attorneys, Stacey Cormican. A $ 41 million payout would amount to

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read about half of the gross revenue the casino generated last year.

Ms Cormican said the ruling will ensure fairness in Iowa’s large gambling industry.

“Casinos are required to post rules and follow those rules. If either the patrons or casinos could change the rules in the middle of the game, it would be absolutely chaos,” she said.

She said such computer glitches are rare.

Ms McKee, of Antioch, Illinois, was playing the poker machine with relatives during a family reunion when she thought she hit the jackpot. When she and her daughter summoned an attendant, casino officials started to investigate, giving her a $ 10 card to play while she waited and eventually giving her and her relatives free rooms.

The casino requested a review by the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission, which sent the machine’s hardware and software to a laboratory for analysis.

Testing concluded the machine had given an erroneous bonus message.