Once again this week, an Austrian court ruled in favor of a punter (see a related article about case of punter’s employer vs. Malta online casino), only this time against a Casino Austria-owned land venue in Bregenz, Austria.
Namely, after ditching the Swiss punter Behar Merlaku who hit a Euro 40 million slot jackpot with an offer of free meal vouchers saying that his win has been annulled due to a 'software error', Casinos Austria faced a court action which finally ended this week with a settlement that Merlaku is to be paid a million Euros.
Merlaku’s Austrian lawyer Thomas Kerle stated that Casinos Austria were accused by his client of refusing to let independent experts check the slot machine in question, adding that the police did too little to investigate the whole case.
On the other side Casinos Austria spokesman Martin Himmelbauer admitted the original jackpot win amount had been displayed, stressing: "We wanted to apologise but he did not want to co-operate. We offered to pay out the cash (60 GBP) that he did win, but he refused to accept it. Usually these matters are sorted out with a meal for two but in this case the man was not prepared to settle for anything less than the full payment."
It appears the Swiss was right not to settle for the GBP60, as he got much more than that. He specified that he plans to use the money to pay for an operation for his physically disabled new born baby.
