Justices side with casino winner in payoff dispute

Friday, April 21, 2000 | 10:03 a.m.

The Mississippi Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Kelly was right and that she be paid the $250,136 in winnings.

Kelly's dispute with International Game Technology of Nevada began when she was playing in 1996 at Treasure Bay Casino in Biloxi and claimed to have hit the Sequential Royal Flush in Hearts on the IGT Bonus Pokermania progressive video poker machine. The machine advertised a $250,136 pay line with all five coins played.

Kelly's play resulted in a descending sequential royal heart flush (A-K-Q-J-10).

IGT denied the jackpot, saying a sign on the game said a player would win on an ascending order (10-J-Q-K-A).

Kelly said the description on the machine was ambiguous by not specifying that only 10-J-Q-K-A, read left to right, would win.

The Gaming Commission and a Harrison County judge agreed with Kelly.

On appeal, IGT argued to the Supreme Court that the machine's sign of "10-J-Q-K-A" limited the award of the progressive jackpot to only that combination, read left to right.

Kelly countered that a sequential royal flush can be either ascending or descending and absent clarifying or limiting words, the sign showing "10-J-Q-K-A" was only an example of a sequential royal flush.

The Supreme Court sided with Kelly.

"The machine's signage could reasonably and fairly be interpreted in more than one way," Justice Mike Mills wrote for the court.