I was playing video poker at a Dotty’s — a chain of 15-machine bar/casinos where I can still eke out an edge. I was playing high stakes for there ($50 a hand) at about 4 a.m. one Sunday morning, sitting off in a corner where the rest of the place spread out before me.
Directly across from me, a lady I’ll call Susan, called the bartender over and said her machine had shorted her a hundred dollars. It didn’t involve me and I didn’t have any information about it, so I watched silently. Voices weren’t raised, but I could still hear things clearly.
The bartender, Ann, listened to the story. Susan moved from another machine with a TITO ticket for about $100, inserted it into the current machine, and two hands later the money was gone. Susan doesn’t play very high stakes, so this was impossible. Susan’s conclusion was that the machine confiscated her money.
So, Ann checked the first machine. Sure enough, about a half hour earlier a ticket for $98.23 was cashed out. Then Ann checked the second machine. About 25 minutes earlier, a ticket for $5.35 had been inserted. There was no record of any ticket for $98.23 being inserted.
From my point of view, what likely happened was that Susan had another ticket, one for $5.35, and that was the one she inserted into the machine. She was either confused about it or possibly taking a shot. One of the two.
There was a small chance, of course, that she indeed inserted the larger ticket into the second machine and it didn’t register on this IGT machine. Not likely. But malfunctions do occasionally happen.
Presumably Ann made the same mental calculation I did. But as she was taking the report, her voice implied she was completely on Susan’s side. Ann outlined the process.
A slot technician would be sent from Dotty’s headquarters and he would open up the box that had collected all the bills and TITO tickets. If there was a $98.23 ticket there, Susan would get that much money from Dotty’s. If there wasn’t such a ticket, then there was nothing that could be done. Ann said she didn’t have the ability to open the box herself. Sorry.
Susan was told that the technician would probably do this in the morning and that Susan would get a phone call with the results. Susan seemed satisfied by all this. She willingly gave her name and phone number and left.
Not long afterwards, Ann was paying me for a small jackpot. I complimented her on the way she handled it. Not once had she let on that she believed Susan was either mixed up or trying to pull one.
Ann thanked me. She acknowledged that she didn’t believe things happened the way Susan said they did, but being polite was part of her job. If the slot tech decided that Susan was mistaken (which we both agreed was the most likely outcome), then it wasn’t Ann’s fault and Susan could still believe that Ann was on her side.
“We do,” Ann shrugged, “work for tips. If I called Susan a liar or an idiot, there’s a pretty good chance I’d never see another dime from her.”
I thought it was a problem well-handled. Since it wasn’t Ann’s responsibility to determine right or wrong, then she shouldn’t do so. And she didn’t.
A possibility for Dotty’s is to come to the conclusion that Susan “owns” the $98.23 ticket and that it hasn’t been cashed yet. What Dotty’s could do is to tell Susan that it will pay her the $98.23 and void the ticket. If (when) she comes across it later, it won’t be worth anything. This avoids the discussion of whether Susan was confused or taking a shot. It makes Susan happy. And doesn’t cost the casino anything because it owes the money anyway.
Once I had a similar experience, inserting a ticket but no credit showed on the machine. What had happened was that I was on an end machine and apparently for whatever reason the ticket was not accepted and spit it out. Unbeknownst to be, a passerby snatched the ticket while I wasn’t paying attention. I was informed by the casino, that the ticket had been played in another part of the casino. Fortunately it was a small amount but a valuable lesson was learned.
I never ran across this before, so it’s an interesting article to keep in mind.
Good story, Bob. It’s happened to me (i.e. my fault), and it’s very embarrassing. If you have more than one ticket — or really, any single ticket — always check the amount before you insert it!
Similar situation. I had just loaded some free play, say $100, played a couple hands and saw my favorite machine open up. Cashed out, moved to new machine, and the bartender almost immediately let me know I had left $80 in the old machine – had not played the free play through, so it wasn’t really mine yet. Sure enough, the ticket in my hand was only $10. Probably didn’t hurt that the bartender has seen me quite a few times over the years, but the lessons? Tip, and say Thanks (and pay attention)
Many years ago, I was playing a $1 JoB machine at Resorts in Atlantic City. This was before TITO was used extensively.
For some reason, whenever the total went over $500, the machine would spit out the coins above the $500.
I always kept track of my totals because I would keep half of my profit and play half to try to win more. When I cashed in my coins, the total they quoted me was quite short of what my notes showed.
Long story a bit shorter, I asked for a slot supervisor who got a slot tech to check the machine. For every $10 the machine spit out, it was short $1! They owed me $135, which they paid.
I couldn’t help but think how many people, who weren’t as much of a nit as I am, were cheated by that machine malfunction.
Where I work, it happened recently that a Player cashed out her credit for approx 300 dollars. Her mind must have been wandering by the time she cashed it out, and she left the machine without the ticket, which was halfway out of the ticket dispensor , and halfway in the machine. Our machines don’t give Sound alert when this happens as it happens all the time for small amounts that people “Forget”, respectively leave in the machine and just walk away. Very small amounts, such as 3 cents of 7 cents or so will go in to our tip box.
So what happened was that on that particular machine mentioned a new guest sat down and put money into the machine and started playing for about 15 minutes. And then this guest cashed out and grabed the ticket which was already there waiting…..the Problem was that this ticket was for the amount of 300 and the 2nd guest only cashed out about 25 dollars. And the 25 dollar ticket was now sitting there and the 2nd guest walked away with the 300 dollar ticket. So that guest walked to another machine machine and put the money in and started playing. Then this Person realized that there is so much money on the credit. The first Person in the meantime had realized that her ticket was missing so she walked back to machine where she was playing previously. She saw “a ticket” sitting there and assumed it was hers. But it wasn’t. She then walked over to the floorperson to explain the situation. You fine Readers will understand that this is quite a tricky situation to resolve. It took us quite a while to figure out how and when and how much etc….. Gladly both customers were nice and co-operative and we settled the balances. But what if These people were gone or refused to co-operate?
Such Errors occur regularly because Gamblers are sometimes mind wandering. But it can get very difficult to resolve the situation. Same Things can happen on the tito-cashout machines. But very very scarsely it happens that slotmachines “eat” a ticket without returning it or without displaying the face value.
“We do,” Ann shrugged, “work for tips. If I called Susan a liar or an idiot, there’s a pretty good chance I’d never see another dime from her.”
This right here sums up the problems with our Nation, the United States. She is not “working for tips.” She is selling out. Working for tips is just an excuse for her restraint.