Slot Machine Jackpot Not To Be

Imagine yourself sitting in front of the slot machine, you pull the handle and low and behold you are a winner! Then a casino employee comes over and says you didn’t – sorry – they made a mistake? That is exactly what happened to Stephen Wilkinson, a retired carpenter from Feasterville. He was playing the Wheel of Fortune slot machine and it informed him by name that he had won $102,000.

Wilkinson’s joy was overshadowed by the casino telling him that the slot machine had made an error and that he had not actually won the money. Instead, they offered him “two comps for the buffet” – not exactly the same thing. He was playing the slot machines at Philadelphia Park, less than a month after it opened its doors.

The casino said that Wilkinson had seen his name on the slot machine because he was using his player card to track his bets, and the machine pulled it from that. They said it was an “error in the communication system” and that Wilkinson had not won the money. They also said that it appeared to be an error in the casinos communications system, not in the slot machine itself.

Wilkinson is a regular customer, having come to the casino to play the slot machines about 15 times since they opened a month ago. He has filed a complaint with the PA Gaming Control Board who said that if it is indeed a problem with their internal controls that they will be “heavily fined and sanctioned.”

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