Check you odds on Video roulette – Gambler persues 25c Claim

This is very interesting basically if you play Video roulette in Las Vegas you are getting lesser odds than if you play live, even if the number is taken from the same table !!!

A little-known aspect of Nevada law allows gamblers to dispute the outcome of any game, for any reason.

While playing slots at the Orleans earlier this year, Sciannameo won $8.50. As a local who knows his way around a casino floor, he believed his meager winnings should have also included the return of his 25 cent wager.

In so doing Sciannameo might have become the first gambler in Nevada to complain to the Gaming Control Board that he should have been entitled to receive his initial wager back on top of his slot machine winnings.

Thursday, the Gaming Control Board denied Sciannameo’s claim to the extra 25 cents. But at no point did the Gaming Control Board call him a nuisance.

In fact, regulators are proud of their “patron dispute” process, a cornerstone of gaming law lacking in less regulated parts of the world.

“People should have the right to appeal to an independent regulatory authority,” board member Mark Clayton said. “This maintains the public’s confidence in gaming.”

There is no monetary threshold for disputes. It doesn’t matter if it’s 25 cents or $25,000,” Clayton said. “If a customer feels they were treated unfairly, they deserve their day in court.”

“We cooperated fully with the Gaming Control Board,” company spokesman Rob Stillwell said. “It really wasn’t about a quarter. It was really a matter of understanding the slot payout tables.” – Boyd Gaming

Before anyone calls out Sciannameo for wasting taxpayer money, consider his claim.

Sciannameo would say he wasn’t fighting over a quarter but the fact that the game he was playing is flawed.

When he put his money in an electronic roulette machine, he expected it to perform like a traditional table game or sports bet, in which winners receive their original wager plus winnings.

Slot machines don’t work that way because they take into account the return of the bet. For example, a five-coin wager that pays out five coins is considered a “win” even though the player just gets his money back. In a blackjack game, a player who has the same hand as the dealer hasn’t won. It’s a push, — neither side wins but the bet is returned.

Had Sciannameo been playing actual roulette, he would have received his bet back in addition to winnings. Not so with this roulette machine, which stated 34-to-1 odds and paid him the value of 34 quarters, or $8.50.

Unlike a lawsuit filed in court, the state’s complaint process doesn’t have to involve attorneys, nor is there any cost to consumers.

The process lasts months and can progress through three administrative layers. When a customer calls the Gaming Control Board, the agency sends an enforcement agent to the site to interview participants and prepare a written report.

The agent presents those findings before a hearing examiner and the examiner makes a decision and renders a report. Both parties are present, and may bring along attorneys. Customers may appeal that decision to the three-member Gaming Control Board, though

Most complaints involve slot machines that gamblers believe have hit a jackpot but instead have malfunctioned. Sometimes wheels spin wildly, a dollar amount is flashing or symbols appear to line up. Most of these disputes are settled by opening up a machine and looking at whether the machine’s computer chip has registered a win or a loss. Machines are typically locked down as soon as a dispute arises and the board gets involved.

It would be unlikely for a casino to simply pay a customer to avoid a dispute — so as not to establish a precedent. Nor can the Gaming Control Board pay a customer.

Casinos are required to notify the Gaming Control Board in disputes involving $500 or more.

Without a patron dispute process, casino employees could take advantage of customers, said Al Rogers, general manager of gambling book publishers.

It’s not the first time a customer has put up a fight over less than a dollar. A few years ago, a gambler at a race and sports book claimed winnings of 57 cents based on the customer’s reading of the odds.

That customer is still out the 57 cent