Jury gets case over 'due' slot jackpot

Are progressive slot machines with fat jackpots ever "due to hit?"

Do slot players ever get valid premonitions that this machine or that is ready to pay off?

"Absolutely not," said Steve Cohen, the lawyer for the former owner of the Frontier hotel-casino during closing arguments Thursday in a civil trial over a lawsuit filed by a California school teacher.

Heather Devon testified that eight years ago she knew a particular progressive slot machine was ready to burst forth with its $97,000 reward.

In fact it did hit as she anticipated, but someone else was sitting there pulling the handle.

The machine that Devon had played for hours was supposed to have been locked down and reserved for her while she ate breakfast, but testimony at the trial indicated it was opened by casino personnel for the other player after $20 changed hands.

That was in violation of casino policy and Devon lost her opportunity to win, her attorney Cal Potter argued in District Judge Mark Gibbons' courtroom.

The eight-person jury began its deliberations today in a quest to decide if Devon should be compensated for what might have been.

If the jury decides the purported payoff to reopen the machine constituted a fraudulent act, it could open the door to punitive damages in addition to reimbursement for the lost jackpot.

Cohen urged the jury to reject the notion of premonitions.

He said that even if the machine had not been reopened and Devon had returned, it wouldn't have meant the machine would have paid off the jackpot for her.

He reminded the jury that an International Game Technology employee had testified that a computer processor inside the slot machine constantly rotated the numbers the machine called on to determine where the reels stopped.

If Devon had been playing, she would have had to activate the machine at the precise instant Brush did to win the progressive payoff, Cohen said.

Otherwise, he said, the odds were always the same for each pull -- 262,144 to 1.

"Whether someone had a feeling or a dream, it doesn't matter," Cohen argued.

"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?"

He agreed that Devon would have had a chance to win, but the odds of that were the same every time the handle were pulled.

"It has nothing to do with dropping the coins fast or slow or playing with the handle," Cohen said.

Potter countered that the issue goes beyond Devon's accurate premonition and to the issue of fairness.

He said Devon should be compensated because the casino violated its policy about opening machines that are being reserved and by not giving Devon a required closure slip that would have specified when the machine would be reopened.

"She had an opportunity to win and this case is about lost opportunity," Potter said.

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