Floating Ball Lawsuit for $2 million Alex

I don't get it. So These high rollers would play roulette. In the middle of a spin, the dealer would remove the ball if it didn't land in a pocket after a while. All bets would have no action. If this happened to me more than once, I wouldn't play there, but they continued to play until they lost $2 million? Wow!

It really doesn't even mention if the "Floating ball" occurred during any of their bets. Based upon reading this article it seems to me they targeted this casino for not filing the correct paperwork, and if they won, they would have taken the winnings, had they lost, which they did, they were gonna sue the casino for operating an illegal game.
It also says that any floating ball bets were returned to the players. I am with the casino here.

Canada has a loser pays system, so no surprise they are ordered to pay the winning party's legal fees. I don't even understand what is meant by the ball being stationary while the wheel is spinning. Were they saying the ball landed in a number and it wasn't counted as a win?

Quote: onenickelmiracle

Canada has a loser pays system, so no surprise they are ordered to pay the winning party's legal fees. I don't even understand what is meant by the ball being stationary while the wheel is spinning. Were they saying the ball landed in a number and it wasn't counted as a win?

Based upon the description it seems like a ball that is frozen on a roulette wheel during a spin somewhere outside of a number like perhaps in a seam between the numbers and the upward angle of the wheel

write up on the first case they lost

http://www.niagarafallsreview.ca/2012/05/09/75m-casino-lawsuit-tossed

Quote: coilman

write up on the first case they lost

http://www.niagarafallsreview.ca/2012/05/09/75m-casino-lawsuit-tossed

So they got all their money back over when there was a floating ball, yet the sue for 3.5 years worth of losses even though they never lost a penny on a floating ball scenario? In what universe do these guys have a case.

Never under estimate the ingenuity of a lawyer in claiming that an obvious malfunction, if not in the rules, did not occur.

Quote: Gabes22

So they got all their money back over when there was a floating ball, yet the sue for 3.5 years worth of losses even though they never lost a penny on a floating ball scenario? In what universe do these guys have a case.

The only plausible scenario that comes to mind is that, by virtue of eliminating the "floating ball" scenarios, the bets that survived were more likely to lose than per normal odds. In other words, they would have to demonstrate that the dealers could tell whether the ball would likely drop into a winning or losing number (for the specific bets on the table) and conditionally cancelled the game in the event they deemed the casino was likely to lose. That's pretty farfetched, and it's also not the basis of the complaint. If a casino simply cancels a roulette game and starts again under normal circumstances, the next spin is just as likely to win or lose as the cancelled one, so nothing about the odds changed.

In fact, unless I'm missing something, the "pick up floating balls" policy is a pretty bad idea all around. Unless the time it would take a "floating ball" to slow down enough to drop into a pocket is longer than the time it takes to restart the game, respin the wheel, and then respin the ball, the casino is decreasing hands/hour with this policy and losing revenue. Being patient seems to be the better approach. Or, if this is a frequent problem, get different roulette wheels...

Edit: Not being a frequent roulette player, I didn't realize that balls sometimes get "stuck" and don't drop at all. The restart policy makes sense in that case, just as a restart would make sense in the event that a blackjack card shuffler jammed.

The Judges ruling .....

http://www.canlii.org/eliisa/highlight.do?text=Moshe+Braunstein&language=en&searchTitle=Search+all+CanLII+Databases&path=/en/on/onca/doc/2013/2013onca121/2013onca121.html&searchUrlHash=AAAAAQAQTW9zaGUgQnJhdW5zdGVpbgAAAAAAAAE

Quote: Judge Simmons

In my view, it would be absurd to suggest that the legislature intended that, because the AGCO had no approved rule in place to respond to such irregularities prior to 2008, all roulette games played in Ontario prior to 2008 were therefore illegal.

And there you go.