Lawyer Wants Slots Jackpot

Alvin Paulson is the city attorney for Fairview Heights, and he is suing Virgin Islands resorts and casino in St. Clair County Circuit Court for not paying a slots jackpot that he says he won. The slots jackpot was for $5.15 million, and he says that the casino needs to pay up.

Paulson has retained Kevin T. Hoerner of Becker, Paulson, Hoerner & Thompson in Belleville to represent him in this case. He says that while vacationing in the Wyndham Sugar Bay Resort he went gambling at the Ocean Club Gaming Center in St. Thomas on March 1st of last year.

He said he inserted a $20 bill, won a jackpot, and still had $16.50 credit on the slots. He claims that “an employee of defendants proceeded to turn the machine off while it was still adding up credits." He says that the manager said that there was some kind of malfunction or technical problem even though there was not.

They are refusing to pay the jackpot as well as the $16.50 that remained on the slots game. He wants $74,000, which includes interest, attorney fees and court costs. He says that the defendants “breached an implied promise” to pay the slots jackpots as they are advertised on the machines.

They also failed to pay his remaining credits from the machine when their employee turned it off. He says that he has witnesses that are willing to testify as to what transpired at the casino.



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