Two lower courts may have sided with BetMGM in its legal battle with a patron, but the Michigan Supreme Court has triggered the legal equivalent of a bonus game for plaintiff Jacqueline Davis.
The matter at the heart of the lawsuit dates back to 2021. As Davis tells it, she played an online slot offered by BetMGM called Luck o’ the Roulette and went on a massive heater that spanned a couple of days.
Slot malfunction paid seven figures to patron
As the heater continued, Davis’s bets escalated from $4.50 a pull to $150 to eventually $5,000. Once she amassed roughly $3.3 million in winnings, she withdrew $100,000, which BetMGM approved. The next day, a VIP host connected to talk about offloading such a large amount of money off the site.
However, a second email notifying Davis her account had been suspended for suspicious play. As BetMGM told the courts, the game malfunctioned and what displayed as smaller winnings on screen in the game was being multiplied several times over in her account balance. For example, an $8.70 bet that paid out $12.25 on the game, but displayer as $45.49 in the account.
BetMGM said she could keep the $100,000 but that the company did not plan on paying out the rest, as the natural result of the game was that she lost her money and her balance went to zero.
MGCB chose not to act or fine BetMGM
Davis filed a complaint with the Michigan Gaming Control Board (MGCB) but also took BetMGM to court, seeking to be awarded what she believes is the full amount of her winnings, $3.3 million.
In the first two court cases, the judges sided with BetMGM. The operator argued that it is the purview of thee MGCB to deal with patron disputes, not a court of law.
In this instance, MGCB conducted an investigation and concluded that the malfunctioning game, which was pulled from the site, resulted in BetMGM breaking two regulations, but declined to take any punitive action against the site. Both of the regulatory violations involved events related to the reporting and investigation of the incident and not the incident itself.
MGCB also told Davis it was effectively not its job to demand operators pay money to patrons and settle patron disputes, even if BetMGM argued it did.
Supreme Court concludes Davis needs legal recourse
The Supreme Court concluded in a unanimous decision that while the MGCB “may” direct operators to take action, the statute’s use of the word “may” reaffirms that normal laws around fraud and consumer disputes mean Davis has a right for her case to be heard in court.
The Supreme Court then kicked the case back down to the Circuit Court with instructions to proceed with the case.
BetMGM declined to comment on the matter.
