A civil court in Bahía Blanca, Buenos Aires, has ordered a bingo hall to honor a slot machine ticket after the operator refused to pay, arguing that the amount was the result of a technical error.
The court ruled that the risks associated with technical failures in gaming equipment fall on the operator rather than the player, applying Argentina’s consumer protection rules to the dispute.
The disputed ticket was worth ARS 22.9m ($16,500).
The judge applied consumer protection law and found that the company failed to prove the ticket resulted from a specific fault in the machine's system.
The court ordered the original prize to be paid, adjusted for inflation from August 2022 until payment, plus interest. With the adjustments and damages included, the total amount could reach ARS 40m.
The judge also awarded ARS 5m in moral damages and ARS 4.3m in punitive damages for the ban on the player's entry, which the court described as retaliatory and discriminatory.
The ban must end immediately, and the defendants must pay legal costs. The operator is also expected to deposit the full amount of the ruling before it can file any appeal.
The dispute began on August 13, 2022, when a regular customer's play on a slot machine printed two tickets, one for ARS 10,000 and another for the larger amount. Staff paid only the smaller ticket and said the second was a machine error.
The bingo offered him ARS 125,000 and later ARS 250,000. He rejected both and demanded full payment, after which the venue banned him.
In court, the operator argued that the ticket was invalid because of a malfunction and that the machine's maximum prize was about ARS 125,000. The ruling is a first-instance decision.
Argentinian courts have addressed similar disputes: In 2016, the Mercedes civil and commercial appeals court annulled a settlement.
The operator of Bingo Chivilcoy paid a player about 5% of an ARS 999,999.95 slot prize won in 2007, citing a machine error, and ordered the full prize paid plus moral damages.
Argentina's inflation rate has reached around 1,247% since the ticket was issued in August 2022
