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BOUNTIFUL — A man briefly thought he had won a windfall at a convenience store, only to see his dream quickly run out of gas.
Aaron Newton said he was playing keno Monday on a “sweepstakes” machine at Corner 22, located at 2193 Orchard Dr., when the machine displayed a “win” totaling $10,999,562.20.
“I (saw) it and I was like, ‘Oh wow!’” Newton said. “I was pretty excited for a minute.”
It was a short-lived minute.
Newton and his girlfriend called over the convenience store attendant, who quickly contacted the vendor.
“They said, 'Shut the machine off,’ and they’d send somebody out to check it out,” Newton said. “So, they shut it off and they were supposed to call us when they came out, and they never called.”
Newton said he and his girlfriend later called the company, Intermountain Vending.
“They said, ‘Well, it was a glitch, you’re not getting anything,’” Newton said. “’The top jackpot is $3,000 and that was much more than $3,000, so you’re not getting anything.’”
Sweepstakes machines
Sweepstakes machines, at first glance, appear to resemble Las Vegas-style gaming machines, where players enter money in hopes of large payouts.
A KSL investigation in February 2016 looked into whether the machines were, in fact, legal, and discovered users were receiving equal value per dollar played in the form of gift cards, and that users could even play for free.
The receipt-like gift cards included multi-digit codes that could be redeemed at a website for merchandise.
“If you want to talk about that, it’s not gambling,” Intermountain Vending business director Stanford Graham said at the time. “Our legislature has a very specific definition of what is and what isn’t gambling. And the activity that this gift card kiosk provides is not gambling.”
A company representative said Wednesday the kiosks still operated the same, but instead now print certificates that are redeemable at a website for music mp3s.
Company Response to the $10M Win
The management of Intermountain Vending issued a statement Wednesday in response to Newton’s claim.
“It is evident that one of our music vending kiosks malfunctioned,” the statement read. “We don’t yet know if the malfunction resulted from a faulty component, damage to the kiosk, and/or outside tampering. The machine has been isolated and will be sent for a full diagnostic evaluation. We will be working with the software vendor to identify the source of the problem,” the statement read. “Our kiosks are designed to vend music and provide amusement to customers, along with the sweepstakes function. The integrity of the system is very important to us and we will do everything we can to determine what happened and to take appropriate actions.”
The statement also noted that the kiosks feature menu screens that explain the terms and conditions and list the odds of all the possible sweepstakes prizes, including the maximum prize of $3,000.
A company representative also said Intermountain Vending would be in contact with Newton and his girlfriend.
After the windfall that wasn’t
Newton said he was disappointed he didn’t win big, but still believes he should receive something.
“I should have gotten something, because right there in the box, ‘Prize,’ it said $10 million,” Newton said. They should at least give me $3,000, at least. I mean, it looked like a jackpot. (It’s) not my fault their machine put $10 million.”
A regular player of sweepstakes games for about a year, Newton cast doubt on his playing the games in the future.
“I think they should make it right, you know,” he said. “I’m not going to play it no more. I’m done. I’m done with that.”
