A New Jersey woman claims an Atlantic City casino refused to pay her a jackpot of more than $1.2 million, 6abc Philadelphia reported.
Roney Beal, 72, claims to have won the jackpot in February while playing the “Wheel of Fortune” slot machine at Bally’s Casino.
“He exploded, he said ‘you’re a winner’ and gold coins came out,” she told the outlet. “This really nice guy says, ‘Oh my God, you’re hitting, you’re hitting!’ He said, ‘Madam, you’re a millionaire.'”
But after using a button to call for help, a “tilt” message appeared, suggesting the machine had encountered a problem.
Beal said a casino employee quickly appeared on the scene and told her she had “won nothing” because the machine had suffered a malfunction known as a “reel tilt,” which she said she had canceled the gain.
Beal and his lawyer Mike Di Croce claim the total jackpot amount would have reached $2.56 million, since Beal hit the multiplier, the New York Post reported.
They are preparing a lawsuit against Bally’s Casino and its gaming company International Game Technology (IGT) over the disputed win, according to the Post.
Di Croce said he also plans to file an emotional distress claim for more than $1 million, according to the report.
Business Insider has contacted Bally’s Casino and IGT for comment.
In a statement to the New York Post, a Bally’s spokesperson said: “Bally’s has no comment on this incident as we are only the casino hosting the machine. IGT handles the payouts and it would be best to obtain a comment at that time.
IGT told the Post it was “cooperating with the casino operator’s investigation into this matter.”
Complaints against casinos number in the thousands every year. Gambling complaints service AskGamblers said it received 8,044 complaints about disputes between players and casinos in 2023. It said 2,267 of those complaints were resolved, with just over $9 million returned to the “legitimate owners”.
However, more than 100 million people visited US casinos in 2023.
This is not the first time that IGT has been at the center of such a claim.
In 2000, a man claimed to have won a $1.3 million jackpot at Harrah’s casino in New Orleans, but that the Wheel of Fortune machine he was playing on also indicated a reel tilt malfunction, reports then the Las Vegas Sun.
IGT’s website claims its Wheel of Fortune slots, which it calls “the millionaire maker,” have created more than 1,180 millionaires, with more than $3.5 billion in jackpots awarded on the machines .
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