casino refuses to pay out million dollar jackpot

[Jackal52]

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Lawyers told ABC News that gamblers like Hoffman may have little legal recourse against Native American casinos, which sometimes operate beyond the reach of U.S. courts.

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I find this really interesting. Can anyone elaborate more on this?

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Indian territory/reservation is sovereign ground. You can't sue Indians for tort or contract damages in state or federal court for injuries that occurred on sovereign Indian land.

[Quanah Parker]

Indians only have clipped sovereignty over their lands.

Otherwise, we'd see lots of reservations transformed into Little Amsterdams.

[TheJokerIsWild]

Man, that must have been a lot of nickels that came out of the machine. It's too bad he couldn't haul them away before they found out it was a malfunction.

[PrimogenitoX]

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Seems like going to court is a decent angle shoot for this dude.
He's risking $2500 for a shot at $1.6 million.

Judging by the few details offered, it seems like the $2.5k is all he's entitled to, but more bad publicity or the fear of a jury trial might encourage the casino to settle out of court for a decent stack of chips.

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[CnC]

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By JIM AVILA, BETH TRIBOLET, DONNA CHOI and SCOTT MICHELS
ABC News Law & Justice Unit
Oct. 25, 2007
For about an hour last August, Gary Hoffman was a very lucky man.

Hoffman was playing the nickel slot machines at the Sandia Resort and Casino on an Indian reservation in New Mexico when he appeared to hit the jackpot: the machine said he won nearly $1.6 million.

"I became ecstatic," he said.

But the ecstasy was short-lived. Hoffman says in a lawsuit filed earlier this year that Sandia refused to pay, claiming that the machine malfunctioned. Instead, he said, they gave him about $385 and a few free meals at the casino.

"I won money, fair and square, and I've been cheated out of my winnings," Hoffman told ABC News.

The casino says it's not responsible for what it describes as a computer error and says it offered Hoffman the maximum payout of $2,500 for that particular slot machine. But, a jury may never decide who is right. Lawyers told ABC News that gamblers like Hoffman may have little legal recourse against Native American casinos, which sometimes operate beyond the reach of U.S. courts.
link

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Jeremy Kleiman, the vice chairman of the commercial gaming subcommittee of the American Bar Association, said that courts normally look at the player's expectations when deciding disputes about gambling.

"The information seemed to indicate this was a stand alone slot machine with a maximum payout of $2,500," he said. "So when you sit down your expectation is to win no more than $2,500. This is not a fraud situation where a carrot was fraudulently dangled in front of a customer's face."

[sledghammer]

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Well this makes me think though. If they can malfunction and tell you that you won 1000x more than you can possibly, how often do these machines magically malfunction and tell you taht you won less than you should have?

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[Hey_Porter]

This happens on one of those Travel Channel Vegas shows. Woman wins a jackpot (not huge), but machine is shown to be busted. Gambling commission investigates, verifies, and woman doesn't get jackpot.

Probably happens all the time, this is just getting news because of how much it is, and the "the Indians are going to screw me" aspect.

[pocketpared]

.00024 cents on the dollar? Plus some free eats? What's he bitching about?

Something similar happened at the Ak Chin, an Indian/Harrahs casino. The press got so bad Harrah's paid the full amount. the indians didn't contribute a cent.
http://doney.net/aroundaz/ak_chin.htm

[warrantofice]

i BET some programmer is having a good laugh about all this.

[jman220]

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Indians only have clipped sovereignty over their lands.

Otherwise, we'd see lots of reservations transformed into Little Amsterdams.

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This is correct, the reason they can have casinos stems from a lawsuit involving the fact that states have lotteries and other forms of legalized gambling, such as charity groups running casino nights, etc.