An Irish Circuit Civil Court judge has ruled that no law forces a casino to pay gamblers their roulette winnings.
The ruling came in a case where Sayed Mirwais sued Automatic Amusements Ltd., which operates the D1 Casino in Dublin, Ireland, which refused to pay him €11,713 that he won after placing several bets on an automated roulette machine in March 2015.
The winner tells a story where he was promised his winnings by the casino manager, who told him to come back the next day, when he would be paid. The manager also told Mirwais that an engineer had to check the machine to see if it was functioning correctly.
The casino then later refused to pay him his winnings from the night before, although, according to Mirwais, he was allowed to continue to play in the hopes that he would lose.
The attorney for the casino claims that there was “suspiciously high amount of money lost by the roulette machine” and asserts that Mirwais found a flaw in the machine’s program that allowed him to continue to play even though the screen said no more bets could be placed.
Mirwais, a native of Afghanistan, says he lost €9,000 the night before. “When I was losing my money, the machine was OK and the casino was happy to take it, but when I won, they wanted to investigate,” he testified.
The judge in the case said that the 1956 Gaming and Lottery Act says “no action shall lie for the recovery of any money or thing which is alleged to be won,” and added, “If you happen to be too lucky while placing a bet or gambling, the person can simply say ‘no you’re not entitled to the money.”
