Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Sued Over Allegedly Keeping Change at Cash-Out Machines

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Hard Rock Café International is one of the latest casino operators to face a proposed class action over its apparent refusal to cash out change to players. 

The nine-page lawsuit says that the Hard Rock Hotel & Casino operator’s ticket redemption machines, which players visit to “cash out” unused credits, pay out only whole-dollar amounts and do not dispense coins. Hard Rock players, who instead of change are given a ticket voucher representing how much they’re owed in coins, are given no meaningful instruction on how to redeem the change balance they’re owed, the suit relays.

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“Instead of paying out the full balance of these ‘cash out’ tickets and returning the funds to the customer in full, Defendant converts ‘cash out’ tickets into a partial cash payment and another ‘cash out’ ticket in lieu of dispensing coins,” the case summarizes, alleging most cash-out tickets are “never redeemed” given many players are unsure of how to get their change or unwilling to wait in line for what amounts to a few cents. 

According to the complaint, some players “decide it is inconvenient to wait in a line for over forty minutes to obtain the change they are entitled to,” causing many to simply discard their change vouchers or toss them into a fountain, “the same way people toss actual change into fountains.”

The lawsuit contends that the impact of not dispensing the money owed to players beyond whole dollars is that customers are lured into making more wagers, “especially since they have to trek to far ends of the casino to receive their change.” 

Other casinos will round up redemption tickets, while others provide players with the option to donate their change to charity, the filing states. Some casinos, the suit says, staff their cashier windows adequately, such that customers are “not deterred from waiting significant amounts of time for redemption of less than a dollar.” 

When the plaintiff, a New York consumer, received cash-out tickets from Hard Rock, he either inserted the tickets into other slot machines or discarded them due to the “time, inconvenience, and obstacles to redeeming them,” the lawsuit relays. 

The case looks to cover all persons in New York, North Dakota, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, North Carolina, South Carolina, Nebraska, Rhode Island, Maine, Wyoming, Kansas, Utah, Idaho, Alaska, West Virginia and Montana who wagered at Hard Rock casinos in New Jersey and across the United States within the applicable statute of limitations period. 

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