At the Resorts World Casino in Jamaica, Queens, Katrina Bookman was playing the slots when she won what would have been the highest slot machine prize in US history: $42,949,672.
She used the device to take a photo to capture the occasion and subsequently said that she felt “numb” when she saw the transformative figure.
Bookman was instructed to return the following day to discuss her rewards, but when she inquired as to what she would be taking home, a staffer answered, “You didn’t win anything.”
According to the New York State Gaming Commission, Bookman only truly earned $2.25 since her machine had broken down.
Because the machine’s warning that “malfunctions void all pays and plays” was there, the commission claimed that they were bound by law to only award Bookman the money she had really earned.
The casino gave Bookman a free steak meal as a show of goodwill, but that’s hardly cause for celebration when you think you’ve won enough money to eat steak for the rest of your life.
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