Disputed slot to be put back in service

Thursday, May 15, 2003 | 11:16 a.m.

SUN STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A Missouri judge today lifted a restraining order on an alleged faulty slot machine and cleared the way for it to be put back on an Ameristar casino floor.

The machine was removed this week after a Kansas City lawyer's lawsuit alleged it cheated him during play at Ameristar Casino Hotel.

Kathy Callahan, Ameristar Casinos Inc. director of communications in Las Vegas, today denied a report that the machine's chip is faulty.

And Missouri's top casino regulator, Kevin Mullally, said the claims are "bogus, frivolous and baseless."

Mullally, director of the Missouri Gaming Commission, said state agents examined the machine in question at lawyer Steven Bradley Small's request months before he filed his action this week in Clay County, Mo., County Circuit Court.

Small acknowledges in the suit that he has lost more than $200,000 at Ameristar the past 10 months, including at least $74,000 in the "Double Red White & Blue" $1 progressive slot machine, which he contends should have paid off by now.

A Clay County judge on Monday granted Small's emergency request without a hearing and ordered the machine taken out of service and held as evidence until the court matter is resolved. At a hearing this morning Judge Larry Harman lifted the restraining order and allowed the machine to be put back on the casino floor, said officials with Ameristar Casinos in Las Vegas.

"There's nothing to this," Mullally said of Small's allegations. "We have a set of procedures that we believe ensures the integrity of the games. We ran some basic checks on it, and we didn't find any irregularities."

Mullally said computer records showed the game was performing within its programmed range of payoff probabilities.

Small responded Wednesday that commission agents "don't know what they're doing." At one point in his 54-page lawsuit, Small suggested that Mullally be put in jail.

Small acknowledges losing at least $60,000 in the machine during the past 90 days. He is seeking total damages in excess of $400,000.

The lawsuit also requests several class-action remedies to correct what Small alleges is false marketing of gambling odds by the casino, and other allegations of cheating and fraud he contends are built into casino games' computer programs.

Small contends that the casino and game manufacturer, International Game Technology of Reno, maintain a complex and secret network of jackpot controls that allow the casino to pick and choose who wins and who loses, and when jackpots will occur.

"The casino can also dispense ... a jackpot winning instruction to a particular machine to force a jackpot to be awarded to a particular player at a predetermined time ... including potentially its confederates," Small says in his suit.

Executives at the Nevada slot firm said they do not comment on pending litigation.

However, Ameristar officials issued a brief statement this week acknowledging that the top jackpot, which stood at $86,000 when the game was unplugged Monday, had not been hit since the game went into service in the summer of 2001.

"Ameristar strongly denies any allegation of wrongdoing," the statement said. "We believe the machine in question is functioning properly, and we are aware of no defect that would influence its performance."

Callahan, with Ameristar Casinos, said today that the chip in question controls the machine's sound and lights, not when a jackpot will be paid.

She said if the chip was not properly installed, the wires attached to the chip could have awarded slot players "unearned payouts."

"So the defect, if it was not installed properly, would be to the benefit of players, not the casino," she said.

But Callahan said there was nothing wrong with the chip or the way it was installed.

Small said his review of patent data for the game suggested that the slot machine should have paid out at least six jackpots of at least $10,000 each since it was put into service.

Most slot machines offer set prizes for symbol combinations that appear. Progressive slot machines' top prizes continue to build by a penny or by fractions of a penny at a time with each wager by gamblers until someone wins.

Among a long list of remedy demands in his lawsuit, Small also asked the court to force casinos to "cap" a slot machine, or hold it out of service, for up to 15 hours to ensure its exclusive use by marathon players such as himself.

Casinos typically cap a machine for no longer than two hours. That brief period, Small contends, "is harmful to players" who need more time for rest breaks and to tend to personal and business affairs.

Small has sued area casinos before in cases that judges at least twice have thrown out of court. In one case, Small alleged that slot machines were illegal in Missouri. In another, he argued that players had a right to sue casinos to recover their gambling losses.

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