Ex-Frontier owners prevail in jackpot dispute

Bill Gang

Tuesday, Sept. 7, 1999 | 10:54 a.m.

The reels of justice whirled for three hours as a jury deliberated whether a California school teacher should be compensated for a jackpot hit by another person on a Frontier hotel-casino slot machine she claims to have primed for hours.

But there was no payoff in court for Heather Devon.

In a unanimous verdict, the jury in District Judge Mark Gibbons' courtroom said late Friday it didn't agree with Devon that the $97,000 jackpot should be hers.

Unless she chooses to appeal to the Nevada Supreme Court, the verdict will end her eight-year quest.

She not only lost her gamble but, like many gamblers, she will walk away owing money since the loser in a civil jury trial is required to pay court costs and jury fees. It is also possible that attorneys for the Frontier's owners when the jackpot hit will seek reimbursement for their legal fees. The Frontier has been sold since the disputed jackpot hit in November 1991.

Testimony at the trial showed that after she had played the dollar progressive slot machine for almost 12 hours, it was locked down and reserved for her while she ate breakfast.

But the machine was unlocked for another player an hour and a half later -- purportedly after a $20 tip was slipped to a change person -- and the jackpot hit about 10 minutes later.

Although Devon claimed it should have been her jackpot, other trial testimony indicated that even if she were sitting there, she likely would not have won.

An employee of International Gaming Technology of Reno, which built the machine, told the jury that where a slot machine's reels stop is determined by numbers plucked by the machine from a computerized number generator that is constantly changing.

Frontier attorney Steve Cohen explained that if Devon had been at the machine she would have won only if she pulled the handle at the precise instant the actual winner did. A moment sooner or later and a completely different set of numbers would have been generated.

The odds of winning the jackpot, he said, are always 262,144 to 1.

Devon had testified she knew the machine was ready to pay and the jackpot was proof her premonition was right.

"Whether someone had a feeling or a dream, it doesn't matter," Cohen said during closing arguments.

"I'll concede that Heather Devon had a hunch and what happened is that the hunch and the payoff coincided," he continued. "But everyone who plays has a hunch. Why else would they play?"

Devon's attorney Cal Potter argued that reopening the machine for someone other than Devon was in violation of casino policy and the woman lost her opportunity to win.

But the eight person jury found that a lost opportunity -- for what might have been -- wasn't enough to win a payoff in court.