An Ontario man was shocked when he recently won more than $10,000 at a casino, only to be told he wasn’t eligible to collect his winnings.
John Marando, 82, recently thought he had met a run of great luck, when he won a jackpot while playing a slot machine at the Mohawk racetrack outside of Milton, Ont.
“I stopped at $10,002,” Marando said in an interview with CTV News.
Marando won $2,000 on a black-and-white $2-coin slot machine and was paid his winnings. But when he won $10,000 on the same machine, he was taken in a room, told he couldn’t have the jackpot and escorted off the property.
Marando said he only started gambling about 20 years ago because he was bored after his wife died and had retired from his job as a Brink’s truck driver.
Seventeen years ago, when he felt he was spending too much, he signed a form to self-exclude himself from gaming facilities. Marando said, as the years passed, he forgot about the form.
Last September, Ontario Lottery and Gaming introduced a new rule intended to help problem gamblers: “As part of our support of a self-excluder’s commitment to stop gambling, self-excluded individuals are not permitted to win prizes.”
Any jackpot over $10,000 is reviewed. OLG said, because Marando is still considered self-excluded, he can’t collect the money.
According to the OLG’s Play Smart website, self-exclusion can apply to gaming sites; including casinos, charitable bingo and gaming and internet gaming.
Gaming sites have implemented facial recognition technology to help “identify anyone enrolled in gaming Self-Exclusion who attempts to re-enter a gaming site by comparing their facial images from site security cameras.”
If those individuals are detected, staff will remove them and they may be charged with trespassing.
“People who are self-excluded need to know that prizes will be disentitled if they’re detected at a gaming facility and this is part of our support to them, part of our way of living up to the commitment to themselves to stay away from gambling,” Paul Pellizzari, OLG’s executive director of policy and social responsibility told CTV News.
Marando says he didn’t know about the rule and calls it unfair. “They didn’t mind taking my money all these years. It sure would have been a nice sum. No, they don’t want to pay me.”
Since the new rule came into effect, the OLG said 29 people who have won jackpots have been denied their winnings.
Officials say people who are banned from gaming facilities are still allowed to play the lottery.
With a report from CTV Toronto’s Pat Foran