'The reels have rolled your way! Bonus Award - $41797550.16.'
When the lights and bells went off at the slot machines at Colorado's Fortune Valley Casino, Louise Chavez thought she won an astounding $42 million. But after the casino claimed the machine.
That's what the Miss Kitty penny slot machine told 87-year-old Illinois grandmother Pauline McKee who was in Iowa during a family reunion in 2011. McKee and daughter thought they hit the big time—a $41.8 million payday. The two quickly demanded the mega payout from the Isle Hotel Casino in Waterloo.
But the casino refused to pay, concluding it was a computer glitch and that a sign on the game says 'MALFUNCTION VOIDS ALL PAYS AND PLAYS.' She sued, and took her case all the way to the Iowa Supreme Court. The state's high court sided with the casino Friday, ruling that the woman's heart-pounding payout was worth just $1.85.
The seven-member high court unanimously ruled (PDF) that the user-agreement, available on the touch screen, said the maximum payout was $10,000 and that 'bonus' awards were not allowed.
As the saying goes in legal jargon—a contract is a contract—the court ruled.
'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 Edward Mansfield wrote for the court.
The court added: 'McKee did not read the rules of the game or look at the paytable before playing the Miss Kitty game.'
The Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission sent the machine—built by Aristocrat Technologies—for a forensics examination, which concluded a computer glitch was responsible for the faulty notice of a jackpot.
Adding insult to McKee's injury, Aristocrat Technologies in 2010 issued a bulletin to casinos that it had detected the 'bonus' glitch as a 'rare occurrence,' and that casinos should disable that part of the system 'as a preventative action.' The casino did not do that.
'All of a sudden, I just hit the jackpot,' says Louise Chavez.
'I couldn't believe, you know, $42 million?' she tells INSIDE EDITION.But casino executives claim the slot machine was malfunctioning, and they're refusing to pay her the money.
'This is like a nightmare to me. I was a million dollar person for one second and all of a sudden, boom,' Chavez says.
She makes about $12,000 a year as a home health aide. She went to the Fortune Valley Casino in Central City, Colorado to celebrate her 53rd birthday. At 11 p.m. she hit the jackpot! She even wrote down the exact amount she'd won: $42,949,673.84.
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'Of course I had dreams of what I was going to do with that money. It was not until about 4:30 in the morning that I was told the machine malfunctioned.'Lady Won 42 Million Slot Machines
'So for five hours you thought you were multi-millionaire?' asks INSIDE EDITION's Les Trent.
'Oh yes, I did,' she says.
The casino is blaming a glitch in the slot machine, saying, 'The payout amount in question is under review as it does not exist as a potential payout by that machine, in our casino or in Colorado.' Colorado gaming officials are also investigating.
'What I want is the money that was shown on that slot machine that I won,' she tells INSIDE EDITION.
In fact the machine itself shows a top prize of only $251,000.