Stratosphere Casino Refuses To Pay Winning Sports Bet

From time to time, an employee will make a boneheaded move that really makes his or her place of business look bad. That’s what happened in the case of Michael Shackleford vs. the Stratosphere in Las Vegas.

Shackleford, by the way, is a gambling consultant, author and former adjunct professor at UNLV. He also owns Wizard of Odds, one of the most respected gambling sites on the Internet. Since this gives him an unlimited platform to blast the Stratosphere for their behavior, it’s safe to say that the offending employee behaved like a Grade-A dumbass.

BETTING ON OKLAHOMA STATE

On September 20th, Shackleford placed a wager with the sports betting department at the Stratosphere. He bet $1,000 on Oklahoma State to defeat Texas Tech. Oklahoma State were +190 underdogs, so the winning ticket should have paid off $2,900.

TRYING TO COLLECT

On January 26th, Shackleford went to the Stratosphere to collect his winnings, despite the fact that the ticket stub said that bets were valid for 60 days following the event.

In the past, it has been tradition for a casino to honor a sports betting ticket, regardless of when the bet was made. In fact, Shackleford himself once took expired slot machine tickets to various casinos as an experiment for his website. They all paid. He’s also had expired sports betting tickets accepted by four different casinos on the Las Vegas strip.

But Patrick Rethore wasn’t having any of that.

You see, Patrick Rethore is the sports book manager for the Stratosphere. In a later statement, this customer service genius claimed, “I informed (Shackleford) that the sports tickets are good for 60 days and his ticket was 126 days old and we would not pay him. I showed him the back of the ticket, which clearly states how long the tickets are good for. He asked for the phone number of Gaming and I gave it to him.”

Smooth move, Ex-lax.

THE BATTLE BEGINS

Shackleford then filed a complaint with the state’s Gaming Control Board. According to the pissed-off gambling expert, “I plan to fight this until the day I die.”

But he also admits that the case may go against him, as the Stratosphere was technically following the agreed-upon gaming laws of Nevada.

THE PLOT THICKENS

During an April 2nd hearing, it was revealed that Stratosphere customers actually have 120 days to redeem a ticket instead of the 60-day-limit listed on Shackleford’s ticket. The casino’s defense? They had several rolls of the incorrect ticket stock on hand, and it wouldn’t have been cost effective to reprint new tickets.

Wow. The Stratosphere just keeps looking better and better.

Shackleford astutely pointed out that any customers bearing a misprinted 60-day ticket may have just been turned away, when their tickets were, in fact, still valid.

It was later learned that the Stratosphere had been issuing tickets with an incorrect date for THREE YEARS.

For now, the case is still ongoing. But how much damage has been done to The Stratosphere’s reputation? Certainly more that $2,900.

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Stratosphere Casino Refuses To Pay Winning Sports Bet