$50,000 casino jackpot a surprise

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A $50,000 nickel slot double jackpot hit this week is valid -- even though the casino didn't know the machine was programmed to pay that much, the Missouri Gaming Commission said.

Isle of Capri Casino officials later found out that the machine was programmed to pay even more: a triple jackpot worth $75,000.

A colorful notice on the machine lures players with the promise of a maximum win of 500,000 coins -- $25,000.

Chereece Rule, 28, of Kansas City, believed the double jackpot she hit Tuesday was worth $50,000. Confusion and caution over the matter delayed payment to Rule until Wednesday afternoon.

She said she had invested only $20 in the Munsters game. Almost from the first pull, she said, the machine began paying small jackpots.

Other players were lining up behind her to play the hot machine, but Rule said she told them, "I'm not getting up."

After about an hour of steady winning, Rule was up more than $200 when the machine displayed the double jackpot, worth a million nickels.

Rick Sorensen, a spokesman for manufacturer International Game Technology in Reno, Nev., said the double- and triple-jackpot feature is a player bonus found on very few of the company's games.

On the Munsters game, players must wager the maximum 125-nickel bet of $6.25 to qualify for the top prize. Each play, the game shows 15 symbols, and it pays off if the right symbols show up on any of 25 different "pay lines" that zigzag across the screen.

For Rule's big win, the top jackpot combination showed up on two of the pay lines.

Experts and regulators from the Missouri Gaming Commission pored over the game's computer innards to ensure that the unusual and unadvertised jackpot was valid.

That left Rule waiting and wondering. The single mother and counselor at Gateway Youth and Family Services said she didn't get a wink of sleep Tuesday night awaiting word about the jackpot.

She stayed at the casino until 3 a.m. and finally got the good news after lunch Wednesday.

Rule said she is going to finish her degree work in computer science at Penn Valley Community College and then buy a house and a car. She said her 8-year-old daughter and 10-year-old son "can have anything they want."

The Munsters game was introduced on Isle's gaming floor last fall. Near the big-payoff machine on Isle's floor, other versions of the game offer maximum 50,000-coin jackpots.

Shawn Dye, casino operations director, said technicians for the Reno manufacturer told him that the Munsters game is common on casino floors around the country but that a multiple jackpot had been hit only once before, in Nevada.

The odds of hitting the multiple jackpot are astronomical, said Dye, "somewhere in the millions."

Dye said he's also taking a much closer look at the payout probabilities for the machine.

At this point, "the slot math doesn't make a bit of sense," he said. After hitting the big double jackpot, he said, the machine "is going to take a lot longer to pay for itself -- a lot longer."