‘Didn’t seem legit’: Vegas slots winner skeptical when contacted about unknown Treasure Island jackpot
$5,000 Welcome Bonus
Because of a slot machine malfunction last month at Treasure Island, above, Arizona resident Robert Taylor didn’t realize he hit a $230,000 jackpot and walked away. After the malfunction was reported, it took Nevada gaming regulators nearly three weeks to track down Taylor to notify him of his winnings. Even then, Taylor said, he wasn’t sure whether to believe what he was being told.
Wednesday, Feb. 9, 2022 | 2 a.m.
When Robert Taylor plopped down at a slot machine last month at Treasure Island, he didn’t know his life was about to change.
And even after hitting a nearly $230,000 jackpot, he didn’t know it — not for almost three weeks, anyway. Because of a machine malfunction, Taylor didn’t realize he hit the jackpot and walked away.
It took Nevada gaming regulators weeks of sleuthing — reviewing surveillance video, talking to witnesses and looking at electronic receipts — to track Taylor down at his home in Arizona.
On Jan. 8, Taylor was playing a slot machine based on Jim Carrey’s 1994 hit movie “The Mask” when the machine encountered an error that prevented it from alerting the player to his win.
“It froze up multiple times, so I thought it was just malfunctioning,” Taylor said. “I was in a bonus feature, and the wheel on the game just kept spinning. There was no indication that I had won anything at all, no bells or whistles.”
Taylor, who was in town with his father and brother, left Treasure Island and headed back to the Luxor, where they were staying.
The next day, Taylor, 27, headed back to Phoenix, where he works as an accountant, never knowing he would soon become a much sought-after man.
A few days after Taylor’s trip to Las Vegas, officials at Treasure Island confirmed there had been a “communication error” with the progressive jackpot network — machines throughout Nevada and New Jersey are linked together — and alerted the Nevada Gaming Control Board of the situation.
James Taylor, chief of the board’s enforcement division, thought it would be a long shot to find the player who hit the jackpot.
“We had video, but not much else to go on,” he said. “Everybody is wearing masks, and he wasn’t using a player’s card or staying at (Treasure Island’s) hotel. It took some time. It was quite the deal.”
Eventually, investigators learned through the Nevada Transportation Authority, which regulates ride-sharing services in the state, that Robert Taylor and his party used an Uber to leave Treasure Island that day. They used his brother’s Uber account to track him down.
“Honestly, if he hadn’t taken a ride share that day, I don’t think we would have been able to locate him,” James Taylor said.
When gaming officials contacted him by phone on Jan. 28, Robert Taylor said he thought it was a scam.
“We were very skeptical,” he said. “We were waiting for them to start asking for credit card numbers and stuff like that. It just didn’t seem like it could be legit. I can say that nothing like this has ever happened to me before.”
The same goes for James Taylor.
In 28 years with Nevada’s casino regulatory and enforcement body — the last two years as chief — he said he hadn’t seen anything that compared.
“I’m not sure I’ll see anything like it again,” James Taylor said. “This obviously wasn’t a criminal case, but it took some good police work to find him. Our agents put a lot of work into this case. It’s a memorable one, that’s for sure.”
Robert Taylor said he didn’t have any plans for his winnings, but he didn’t intend to “do anything too crazy.”
He said he’d likely take his family on more vacations.
Courtesy photo
Nevada gaming officials spent weeks trying to locate Robert Taylor of Arizona. Taylor hit a nearly $230,000 jackpot at Treasure Island, but because of a machine malfunction, Taylor didn’t realize he hit the jackpot and walked away.
On Saturday, Robert Taylor was back at Treasure Island, this time posing for photos with an oversized check.
James Taylor — no relation to the jackpot winner — was there too.
“I wasn’t going to miss that one,” James Taylor said. “This was a pretty memorable case for me, and I’ve worked on a lot of cases over the years.”
