Casinos That Refused to Pay: The 43 Million Dollar Steak Dinner

🕑 10 min read

Last updated: June 2026

Imagine the slot machine lights up and tells you you’ve just won forty-three million dollars. Now imagine the casino hands you a steak dinner instead. It has happened, more than once, and the players walked away with nothing. The reason is four little words printed on every machine in the building, and once you understand them you’ll never look at a flashing jackpot the same way. Let me tell you about the casinos that refused to pay, and how to make sure it never happens to you.

This is one of those stories that makes people genuinely angry, and I understand why. But I’ve worked these floors fifty years, and the truth is messier and more interesting than just “casino bad.” There’s a real reason these payouts get voided, there’s a real way it can go too far, and there’s a real way to keep yourself out of the heartbreak. So let’s go through it honestly, the casino’s side and yours.

The four words on every slot machine

Look closely at any slot machine, somewhere on the glass or buried in the rules screen, and you’ll find a phrase that decides everything: malfunction voids all pays. Sometimes it reads “malfunction voids all pays and plays.” Those words mean that if the machine glitches, anything it displays, no matter how enormous, does not count. The casino owes you nothing for a number a broken machine put on the screen.

Here’s the thing most players never realise. The spinning reels and the flashing lights are just a cartoon. The real result was decided in a fraction of a second by a computer chip, the random number generator, the moment you pressed the button. The screen is supposed to show you what the chip decided. But if the screen and the chip disagree, because of a software bug or a hardware fault, the rules say the chip wins and the screen is meaningless. So a machine can light up with a life-changing number that the computer inside never actually awarded. And that, sad to say, is exactly what happened to the people in this story.

The forty-three million dollar steak dinner

In 2016, a woman named Katrina Bookman was playing a penny slot at a casino in New York City when the machine froze on a number that stopped her heart: 42,949,672.76. Almost forty-three million dollars. She did what any of us would do, took a selfie with the screen, and went home thinking her life had changed forever. Staff told her to come back the next day.

When she came back, there was no fortune. The casino and the state’s gaming regulator said the machine had malfunctioned, and that its true maximum payout was a few thousand dollars, not millions. According to widely reported accounts, the most she was offered for her trouble was a complimentary steak dinner. The machine, on closer inspection, had recorded her actual win as a couple of dollars and change. She sued. The courts sided with the casino, because the malfunction clause was right there in the rules, and the number on the screen was a glitch, not a jackpot. Forty-three million dollars, and a steak dinner to show for it.

The forty-one million that vanished

It wasn’t a one-off. A few years earlier, an Iowa grandmother named Pauline McKee was playing a Miss Kitty penny slot when a bonus screen told her she’d won just over forty-one million dollars. She and her family celebrated. The casino refused to pay, and the fight went all the way to the Iowa Supreme Court.

The court read the machine’s own rules carefully, and the rules were clear: the most that bonus could ever award was capped far, far below the number she saw, and the giant figure was the result of a software error. On top of that, the familiar phrase appeared again, malfunction voids all pays. The judges ruled she was owed nothing at all, not even the small capped amount. Two ordinary people, two impossible numbers, two machines that lied, and in the eyes of the law, two jackpots that never existed.

Why the casinos keep winning these fights

So how do casinos win these cases, every time, when the photo clearly shows a giant number? It comes down to one legal idea: you are paying to play a game, not to be paid whatever the screen happens to show. When you sit down, you agree to the rules of that machine, and those rules include the maximum it can pay and the line about malfunctions. A glitch that flashes forty million on a penny slot isn’t the game working, it’s the game breaking, and a broken result isn’t a binding offer.

It helps the casino that the truth is on its side technically. That penny machine genuinely could not pay forty million. Its top prize was a few thousand. The random number generator never selected a forty-million-dollar outcome, because no such outcome exists in its programming. The screen simply garbled. Gaming regulators, the state bodies that inspect and certify every machine, back the casino up because they can pull the machine’s internal logs and see exactly what the chip decided. The number you photographed and the number the machine awarded are two different things, and the law cares about the second one. Cruel, but that’s the mechanism.

So is it actually fair?

Honestly? It’s both fair and not, and I won’t pretend otherwise. The fair part is real. Machines do break, and if every glitch had to be paid, casinos couldn’t operate and bad actors would game it deliberately. The malfunction rule exists for a genuine reason, and the giant numbers in these stories truly were errors, not wins. Nobody was robbed of money the machine actually decided to give them.

The unfair part is real too. The casino writes the rules, certifies the machines, holds the logs, and gets the benefit of the doubt, while the player gets a steak dinner and a lawsuit they’re almost certain to lose. There’s a strong argument that if a company puts a machine on the floor that can flash a number it can’t pay, it should bear more of the cost of that confusion than it does. The fairest takeaway is the grown-up one: the system isn’t a scam, but it is tilted, and the only person looking out for you on that floor is you.

How to protect yourself

You can’t win a malfunction fight, so the goal is to never need to have one. A few simple habits keep you safe. First, know the top prize of whatever you’re playing. If you’re on a penny slot whose jackpot is a few thousand dollars and it suddenly shows millions, that’s a glitch, full stop, not a miracle. Real jackpots come from machines built and certified to pay them, like the big progressive networks.

Second, if something strange does happen, do not touch the machine again, take a photo, and call over a floor attendant immediately so it’s logged while the machine is frozen. Ask them to bring a supervisor and the slot technician. You probably still won’t get a glitched number, but you protect any legitimate win and you create a record. Third, stick to licensed, regulated casinos, online and off, where a real gaming commission oversees disputes and you have somewhere to appeal. An offshore site with no regulator can void anything it likes and you’ve got no one to call. And fourth, the simplest protection of all: treat slots as fun, play within a budget, and never sit down already spending a jackpot you haven’t won. The players in these stories were ordinary folks having a flutter. The machine, not greed, is what broke their hearts. Don’t let it break yours.

Frequently asked questions

Can a casino really refuse to pay a jackpot?

If the jackpot was caused by a machine malfunction, yes. Every slot carries a “malfunction voids all pays” rule, and courts have repeatedly upheld it. The machine’s certified result, recorded by its internal chip, is what counts, not whatever number a glitch puts on the screen. A genuine, properly awarded jackpot, however, must be paid.

What does “malfunction voids all pays” mean?

It means that if a machine breaks or behaves incorrectly, any payout or play it displays is cancelled. The phrase is printed on essentially every slot machine. It protects casinos from having to honor software bugs and hardware faults, and it’s the clause that has defeated every famous “casino refused to pay” lawsuit.

Did Katrina Bookman ever get her 43 million dollars?

No. The casino and New York’s gaming regulator ruled the machine had malfunctioned, with a true maximum prize of a few thousand dollars. Her lawsuit failed because the malfunction clause governed the outcome. By widely reported accounts, the largest gesture she was offered was a complimentary steak dinner.

How do I know if my jackpot is real?

Check the machine’s top prize before you play. If the displayed amount is far larger than the game’s stated maximum, it’s almost certainly a malfunction. Real jackpots come from machines and progressive networks certified to pay them. If anything looks off, stop, photograph it, and call a floor attendant right away so it’s logged.

Does this happen at online casinos too?

Yes, online games carry the same malfunction rules in their terms. The big difference is oversight. At a licensed, regulated online casino a real gaming authority can review a dispute, but an unlicensed offshore site can void a win with no accountability. That’s a major reason to stick to properly regulated casinos.

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