Customers playing slot machines at Hollywood Gaming at Dayton Raceway this past Saturday were in the right place at the right time, as a glitch in the system allowed gamblers to play the machines and hit jackpots free of charge.
As an article by ABC 22 explains, a coding error activated a promotion at 12:01 a.m. on Saturday which allowed everyone on the gaming floor to play for free.
Penn National spokesman Bob Tenenbaum has told the Dayton Daily News that there was a mistake made in coding the promotion into the system. “At 12:01 a.m. Saturday it started to pay out promotional awards for everyone who put their card in the machine,” he said. “We became aware of it a couple hours later and cut it off.”
ABC 22 quoted Tenebaum as saying, “Frankly, I think we had an awful lot of happy customers late Friday night and that's fine, we want people to be happy and we want them to come back."
The report goes on to state that the promotion was supposed to start at 6 p.m. on Saturday. Only a handful of random gamblers were supposed to win during the promotion, but the article states that ‘everyone was winning.’
Some details regarding how much money was given away via the promotion on the machines could be announced next month when financial statements become public.
(With files from ABC 22 and Dayton Daily News)