Rio Slot Dispute and Resolution

My father was in town this weekend and on Sunday night my wife and I took him to the Rio buffet. After dinner he decided he wanted to try $20 or so dollars in the slots to try and "win big so he could retire." I laughed. We walked around the Rio and decided to play a penny slot Wheel of Fortune machine that had three large bonus wheels on top with a $3.5 million progressive jackpot. He put $20 in and playing the max bet of $3.00 hit the bonus on the third or fourth spin. The bonus allowed him to select 3 envelopes that would reveal some symbol that corresponded to "pegs" on the bonus wheels. However, when we touched the screen to select the envelopes nothing happened. After about a minute of tapping the screen, we hit the service button. A slot supervisor came over, inspected the game and then called over a slot tech. Unbeknownst to us it appeared that someone at sometime had spilt a beverage on the screen and it had seeped down into the machine causing the machine to overheat, all this according to the slot tech. Unfortunately, he was not able to get the touch screen to function properly and he called over the slot manager to attempt to resolve the issue.

After examining the game and the potential payout he decided that a fair payout for our troubles would be $50. I immediately replied that this was not acceptable. (By my calculations the best case scenario would have allowed us to multiple our winnings by 21x and based on having the 3 envelopes to select we would have had to select two multipliers and then land on the largest wheel amount which appeared to be 5000 credits ($50). However, part of the wheel is hidden so there may have been other higher amounts. I quickly concluded our best bet would have been a win of approximately $1000.) The slot manager asked what I thought was fair. I replied, "I think considering the potential win that $500 is reasonable. I am a local and diamond player and play specifically here at the Rio quite often, you'll get your $500 back in a week or two." (I primarily play video poker, as most of you know, so I was not real familiar on how much the expected win would/could be.) He immediately removed my card from the machine and said he would return. After a couple minutes he came back with the same $50 offer or stated that he could call IGT have them come over reset the game and they would be able to determine what my bonus would have paid and they would have the money waiting for me at the cage upon my return. I asked how long it would take IGT to resolve the issue and he stated within the hour. I elected to have IGT resolve the issue, even though I was unsure of the technicalities behind whether they would be able to determine what my bonus would have paid, as I am not sure when the bonus win amount is determined (at the time of initiating the bonus or sometime during the bonus game). I decided to sit around for a few minutes as they (two slot managers) attempted to fix the machine. While waiting the one slot manager began wiping down the inside of the game from where the drink had spilt. He called me back over to see if his efforts made any difference.

I was then able to select the envelopes even though it took several taps on the screen to select each envelope. My selections resulted in one peg on the multiplier bonus wheel and two pegs on the larger of the two money bonus wheels. The result was a $400 win. We immediately cashed out, thanked the managers for their assistance and left.

Thinking back on it I still think the $50 offer was somewhat ridiculous. My $500 offer was probably on the high side. I probably would have taken a $100.

Any thoughts, comments would be appreciated. What would you have thought to be a reasonable offer?

They could have given you fifty anyways just for the inconvenience of having to wait, so definitely see fifty as a low ball offer. Don't know anything about the game to guess what fair is, but i'm sure it isn't fifty.

Quote: onenickelmiracle

They could have given you fifty anyways just for the inconvenience of having to wait, so definitely see fifty as a low ball offer. Don't know anything about the game to guess what fair is, but i'm sure it isn't fifty.

I was just going to say, he should have let you have the $50 for being an idiot. Was he there when you got the $400? I would have defiantly said something smart ass to him. Unfortunately all malfunctions void plays and plays and he probably thought he was doing you a favor originally.

Good post. $50 seems low but i also dont know enough to make an educated amount they should have offered. In any case the issue seems to have resolved in a positive way for you.

Slot bonuses tend to have an average win of about 20 times the bet amount. Based on a $3.50 wager, that would be an average win of $70. So, a $50 settlement offer sounds on the stingy side to me, but not totally unreasonable. I think an appropriate offer, not knowing any other information, would be $100. The casino should err on the side of being generous when it is at fault.

Fifty was stingy.
A VERY PROMPT offer of 100.00 would have been reasonable.
Delay and arguments should have upped the amount.
You should have threatened to call Gaming.

This shows how the Rio has come down. It used to always be two casinos: Rio by Day and Rio by Night. Each a pretty good bargain.
Then something happened and just like that spilled drink... it sort of gummed up the works. Now its just no longer what it used to be, either days or nights.

AxelWolf. Yes he was there when we hit the $400 and I immediately looked back at him, but left it at that.

I think the Wiz did a write up on bonuses before, but is anyone sure on how IGT would have resolved the issue? More specifically had IGT come an hour later would my win still have been $400?

Thanks.

I might have asked to look at the par sheet to gauge the average bonus pay, but the Wizard is right -- 20x is in the ballpark. I might have replied with "$50 is too low for this game. How about we look at the math to determine the average pay and then round up to the nearest $20 for my inconvenience." Then you look at the par sheet for the feature RTP contribution (of the feature you're in) and the probability, then divide. e.g. 20% RTP contribution / 0.8% frequency = 25x average payout, multiplied by $3.50 wager = $87.50 rounds up to $100.

On the other hand, it's gambling, and you did ultimately get the game working. $400 was very likely more than the average payout for that bonus.