A metro Detroit woman is suing the FanDuel betting app for failing to pay her more than $154,000 in alleged winnings from its online casino.
Theresa Tomasik of Waterford says that in April of last year she was playing one of FanDuel’s online slot machine games, Huff ‘N More Puff, when on her 10th or so spin, alarms went off and the app informed her that she had won big — to the tune of $154,160.
The app even issued a “Big Win Alert” to other FanDuel users, announcing that “Theresa T. from MI just turned a $ Spin on Huff N’More Puff into a HUGE $154,160.40 win!”
But when Tomasik checked her account on the app, her jackpot winnings weren’t there.
“They didn’t want to pay me, I guess,” Tomasik said Friday, April 24, in an interview at the Dearborn office of her lawyers with Not Guilty Law.
A few days after the incident happened last year, Tomasik posted on Facebook about FanDuel not honoring her jackpot and asked whether anyone else had faced a similar situation. In the post, she claimed FanDuel had told her they had “an error in their system” and that she in fact hadn’t won anything.
“I want my money because I am in a situation where it would be a life changing amount,” she wrote in the Facebook post.
Her lawyers filed the lawsuit against FanDuel earlier this month in Wayne County Circuit, alleging fraud and misrepresentation. The suit also claims that the New York-based gambling app company refused to produce Tomasik’s transaction history or respond to a complaint form she had filed with the Michigan Gaming Control Board.
The lawsuit seeks $462,481 from FanDuel, which represents her alleged winnings plus triple damages.
Attorneys for FanDuel have yet to file an official response to the lawsuit, and a company spokesperson declined comment to the Free Press on Friday, April 24.
A gaming control board representative also declined all comment regarding the complaint Tomasik is said to have filed.
“To me, this is no different than if you walk into the casino and you put a quarter in the slot and you pull that lever and you win a bunch of money,” Tomasik’s lawyer, Muthu Veerappan, said. “After you win the money, they can’t come downstairs and say, ‘Actually, we’re going to keep the quarter and we’re not paying you any money.’ “
While attorneys with Not Guilty Law said Tomasik’s case is the first of its kind in the area that they have seen, there have been news reports of similar incidents across the country involving other Internet gambling apps.
In some of those cases, the online casinos got out of paying people six-figure winnings by claiming that a so-called “obvious error” had occurred, and how their terms and conditions void jackpots that result from such errors.
Contact JC Reindl: 313-378-5460 or jcreindl@freepress.com. Follow him on X @jcreindl
This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Metro Detroit woman says FanDuel refuses to pay out her $154K jackpot
Reporting by JC Reindl, Detroit Free Press / Detroit Free Press
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