Originally Posted by
MaxPen
The fact that MGM offered anything in addition to the 100k tells me that she is in the right with whatever is going on. It doesn't appear to be a malfunction. It appears to be a payout error in the program. She didn't design the game or offer the game. She just played it. They owe her the money and they know it.
I'm no friend of the casinos, as you know. However, I try to look at these things logically and fairly, and not just side with the underdog.
I cannot see how a player can make legal claim to an overpay. That's where the "malfunction vods all plays and pays" comes in, which you see on every machine. It's to protect the casino in the case where you win $5 and the machine somehow pays you $5,000,000.
I will agree that casinos need to eat losses from misset paytables or games somehow placed in lucrative +EV states. It is the casino's responsibility to set games properly to where there is a house advantage.
However, if the machine doesn't function as intended, and simply pays out more than the player has won, that's definitely a malfunction, and I'm on the casino's side. I'm not going to hold it against anyone who tries to exploit this and make a little coin before the casinos catch on, but I'm also not going to cry for them when they get caught and face the consequences.
BetMGM apparently paid the first $100,000 before realizing there was an issue. It was shortly after that where they realized what had occurred, and locked her account. The offer to pay her an additional $23k (and let her keep the $100k as well) was likely for PR purposes. Rather than deal with the bad optics of the situation if this story hit the press, it was worth it for BetMGM to just pay a little more money and make the problem go away.