On August 16, 2006, Gary Hoffman decided to try his luck on a nickel Mystical Mermaid slot machine at the Sandia Resort and Casino in New Mexico. After about 20 minutes of play, the machine went into what Mr. Hoffman thought was one of its bonus rounds and eventually displayed a screen that said, "Jackpot! $1,597,244.10 Call Attendant. Handpay Required." He had a friend take a picture of himself with the screen using a cell phone. Mr. Hoffman received congratulations from other players and even a marriage proposal. Everyone congratulated him on his good fortune. Everyone but the casino personnel. The reason the casino personnel did not congratulate Mr. Hoffman was because the largest jackpot possible on this machine was 50,000 coins, $2,500. It was not a progressive machine or part of a progressive link. There was no way to have a payout of this size on this machine, no way, that is, unless the machine malfunctioned, which is exactly what the casino said.
Both International Game Technology, the manufacturer of the machine, and Gaming Labs International (GLI), an independent gaming device testing lab, examined the machine and confirmed that a malfunction had occurred and the jackpot was "erroneous," using industry parlance. I became aware of, and part of, the story in late October 2007. ABC News wanted to do a piece on the incident for Good Morning America. Through my website and through Huntington Press, my publisher, a producer at ABC News reached out to me to see if I could provide some additional insight on what happened and tape an interview for the piece.
The piece aired on Thursday, October 25, delayed and shortened because of the coverage of the California fires. Well, I don't know for a fact that it was shortened, but I like to think that that is the reason that my footage ended up on the cutting room floor and not in the piece that aired. I did, however, make it into the article that is on the ABC News website.
When I work with attorneys on slot-related cases, I gettechnical details from the companies involved and translate the details into layman's terms that the attorneys, most of whom do not have computer science backgrounds, can understand.
In this case, the only details about the malfunction made available to me were in a letter from GLI to, I believe, the governor of New Mexico explaining in layman's terms what had malfunctioned. I can't put back in the technical details that were left out and I had only a few minutes to read the letter, but this is my best guess as to what actually happened on that machine.
Mr. Hoffman initiated a spin. The RNG was polled to determine the symbols that would land on the payline. A losing combination landed on the payline.
The program running the machine has to determine whether the combination is a winning combination. The program looks in a table that lists each winning combination and how much that combination is worth and whether it triggers any bonus events. It was in this part of the processing that the malfunction occurred.
Actually, it wasn't so much a malfunction as bad data. The program did exactly what it was supposed to do, but somehow portions of the machine's memory got corrupted and the program thought that the way to handle this combination was to go into some bonus event (which I've never heard described) and eventually display the jackpot screen.The analogy given in the letter was to using a card catalog at a library. You look in the card catalog to find if the library has a specific book and, if it does, where it is shelved. If the information on the card is wrong, you'll look for the book on the wrong shelf. The winning combinations table in the machine is like the card catalog and, in this case, the table contained information that caused the machine to go into the bogus bonus round and display the impossible jackpot amount.
Hoffman has filed a suit against the casino. Complicating matters in this case is the fact that the Sandia Casino is a tribal casino.
Tribes have sovereign immunity and their own court systems, so the case may never be heard in a U.S. court. Hoffman has already lost in the tribe's internal review process.
At the end of the video report, Hoffman's attorney makes a despicable comment. He said that it looks like the Sandia Casino refuses to pay any time they think you've won too much money. Never mind the tens of millions of dollars I'm sure the casino has already paid to players who legitimately won jackpots on its machines.
- John Robison is an expert video poker player and author of The Slot Expert's Guide to Playing Slots, $6.95, by Huntington Press (800) 244-2224. He is the managing editor of the gaming pages at
rgtgaming.com. Email:
slotexpert@comcast.net.
