Woman hits $8 million jackpot, casino claims slot machine malfunctioned

FILE - In this May 24, 2012 file photo, patrons play the slot machines at Harrah’s Casino in Chester, Pa. The odds are long on Northeast’s casino projects hitting financial expectations. A review of tax data in the last several ... more >

An Oregon woman landed on the $8 million jackpot while playing the slot machine at a Lucky Eagle Casino, but walked away empty-handed when the casino told her the machine malfunctioned.

Veronica Castillo, a mortgage loan officer from Beaverton, Oregon, took her mother to the casino in Rochester, Washington, last weekend. She was elated when she put $100 in one of the slot machines and hit the jackpot — or so she thought.

“I was very excited, happy,” she told a local CBS News affiliate. “Then I couldn’t believe it.”

The casino staff told Ms. Castillo that she hadn’t won the $8 million because the machine malfunctioned.

“They shut off the machine, took it away, printed out a ticket and gave me $80,” she said.

The casino machines all have a sticker on them informing players that a machine malfunction voids all pays and plays, CBS reported.

“To me, it’s cheating, may even be fraudulent,” Ms. Castillo said. “My first thought was, how many people has this happened to? They think they won, then going away empty-handed.”

She is working to get an attorney to claim her winnings.

Casino CEO John Setterstrom, who has been with the casino since before it opened in 1995, told CBS this has never happened there before. He said he is working to get answers from the manufacturer and wants to keep Ms. Castillo as a customer.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/nov/7/woman-hits-8-million-jackpot-casino-claims-slot-ma/

Gambling Addict Gambles Away Dead Girlfriend's Benefits!

Centralia Man Accused of Gambling Away Deceased Girlfriend's Labor and Industries Benefits

7/12/2014

By Stephanie Schendel, The Chronicle, Centralia, Wash.

McClatchy-Tribune Information Services

July 12--A Centralia man accused of gambling away his deceased girlfriend's Labor and Industries payments in the months following her death was charged with identity theft earlier this month.

Daniel R. Vaeth appeared in Lewis County Superior Court on July 3. Prosecutors charged the 58-year-old with first-degree identity theft.

The Department of Labor and Industries began investigating Vaeth, who is a convicted sex offender, in 2011 after learning that his live-in girlfriend, Bonnie Scott, had died the previous year and had since received thousands of dollars in benefits, court documents state.

Scott had legally been receiving her husband's L&I pension benefits after he died in 2007, court documents state. Scott was entitled to her former husband's L&I benefits under the Industrial Insurance Act.

But when Scott died in September 2010, a year passed before L&I found out about her death and stopped the payments, court documents state. Due to the delayed notification about her death, L&I calculated it overpaid by $15,181.

An investigator from L&I discovered that after her death, someone had withdrawn more than $8,000 from the woman's bank account at various ATMs throughout Centralia and at the Lucky Eagle Casino in Rochester, court documents state.

The investigator found that 11 out of the 15 times that money was withdrawn from Scott's accounts after her death from the ATM at Lucky Eagle Casino, Vaeth had used his player card at the casino during the same time.

When the L&I investigator and a Centralia police detective met with Vaeth, he allegedly admitted to taking the money from the account, court documents state.

First-degree identity theft is a class B felony and carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.


http://m.insurancenewsnet.com/oarticle/2014/07/12/centralia-man-accused-of-gambling-away-deceased-girlfriends-labor-and-industrie-a-529405.html