Man awarded K40,000 in landmark court decision for outlet’s failure to pay winning jackpot
A POKIES player has been awarded more than K40,000 he had won, but denied payment, at a Port Moresby hotel three years ago.
At the same time, Madang resident judge Justice David Cannings, who made the award, warned pokies site operators to be diligent in the repair and maintenance of pokies machines or they may be forced to pay cash on demand. The Madang National Court yesterday awarded K40,800 to former chairman of Kurumbukari Limited, John Opotio in what was a landmark decision.
According to court documents, Mr Opotio had been playing at a hotel in Port Moresby and had been on the “jaguar” machine all morning.
By afternoon the machine showed a winning bit of 4,080,000 (4.08 million) credits.
Each credit has a value of one toea.
Mr Opotio went to cash out but the cashier refused after consulting her supervisor, saying that the machine was faulty.
Aggrieved by the decision Opotio took the matter to court and after three long years he can now smile.
The court found out that the hotel proprietor refused to pay out on the grounds that the machine had malfunctioned and that it was the responsibility of the National Gaming Control Board (the controller of the machine) to remedy the problem.
Justice Cannings found that despite the defendant agreeing with essential facts presented by the plaintiff, it denied the claim of breach of contract on three grounds.
First was that the machine malfunctioned and therefore the winning bet was void; it was not the owner of the machine and therefore not liable and that the winning bet was void under section 31 of the Gaming Machine Regulation 2015.
Justice Cannings in addressing these three issues when making his final judgment, said that despite the hotel owner’s evidence that the machine had last been checked by NGCB technician’s but failed to issue a faulty notice, puts his argument as an “empty argument”.
“I find the arguments to be little probative, not independent, opinionated and uncorroborated. I am not satisfied that the machine malfunctioned. Even if I were so satisfied, I am not satisfied as a matter of law that by itself renders a winning bet void.”
Madang is among a handful of provinces that bans pokies since its introduction in the mid-1990s.