In the expansive and glittering halls of Encore Boston Harbor, operated by Wynn Resorts in the historical city of Everett, Massachusetts, an intricate dance of legality has finally come to a decisive pause. For over five years, the legal maestros of Wynn Resorts have navigated the treacherous waters of litigation. Yet, in a recent unfoldment that bore the gravity and finality akin to the dropping of a velvet curtain after an opera’s last act, the United States First Circuit Court of Appeals delivered a ruling that resonated with the sound of victory for Wynn Resorts.
On a Monday steeped in significance, the air within court chambers was thick with anticipation as Circuit Judge Lara Montecalvo, wielding the power of her pen, crafted a unanimous opinion alongside her esteemed judicial companions. Plaintiff A. Richard Schuster, who dared to challenge the gaming giant, saw his edifice of allegations crumble into dust as the judges found his claims to be baseless against the opulent backdrop of Wynn’s Massachusetts operations.
“The well-reasoned decision of the First Circuit affirming the dismissal of the case reflects the same conclusion that every other court that has heard any part of this case has reached,” declared Wayne Dennison, a legal artist at Brown Rudnick and the lead counsel for Wynn Resorts alongside his colleague Josh Dunn, following the judgment.
At the heart of the controversy lay the redemption of slot machine vouchers at the esteemed Encore Boston Harbor, a practice cloaked in the trade term “ticket in, ticket out,” abbreviated to the now-familiar “TITOs.” Prowling the casino floors were TRUs, the silent metallic sentinels standing as monoliths of modern gaming convenience. These ticket redemption units, however, dispensed no coins and instead rounded figures down, turning the likes of a $43.57 ticket into a neat $43 payout, with the remaining change offered as a new ticket for redemption at the casino’s welcoming cage.
The coin shortage borne from the global COVID-19 pandemic beckoned many gambling palaces to relinquish the clink of coins for the silent transfer of paper, yet Schuster saw malfeasance where others saw practical adaptation. Echoing through the courtrooms was Schuster’s outcry that these practices were contrary to the rules dictated by the Massachusetts Gaming Commission and betrayed consumer protection statutes.
Schuster once sparred with the casino giant over the rules of the fabled blackjack tables, where Boston’s version purportedly tipped the house’s balance far greater than the Sin City renditions. Whereas a traditional 3:2 blackjack game would net players $3 for every $2 staked in a winning hand, the contested 6:5 games limited the win to $6 for every $5 bet, a seemingly minuscule difference that becomes a titan when wagers climb into the stratosphere.
The Massachusetts Gaming Commission’s Investigations and Enforcement Bureau scrutinized Schuster’s claims soon after they were hurled at the towering glass walls of Wynn’s ever-resilient casino, only to vindicate the establishment much to Schuster’s dismay.
The saga continued to twist and writhe through the labyrinthine state appeals process, escalating all the way to the Massachusetts Supreme Court, which stood firm with Wynn. Undeterred, Schuster plunged into the depths of the federal judiciary where the unyielding walls of the U.S. Massachusetts District Court echoed with the pronouncement of summary judgment in Wynn’s favor this past February.
Resolute in his conquest, Schuster propelled his grievances to the realms of appellate review in March, only to be met with the exhaustive, piercing gaze of the federal appellate court in January of the new year.
Ultimately, the judges promulgated that the currencies of gaming are not solely confined to tangible coins and bills but extend to the realm of vouchers as well, disintegrating the foundation of Schuster’s appeal. They decreed that not a cent of the gambler’s wealth was pilfered by the TRU processes as each patron retained the right to convert those elusive digits on the voucher back into the realm of physical wealth at the casino’s cage, or to persist in their quest for fortune on the casino floor.
Hence, as the dust settles, A. Richard Schuster faces the towering monolith of the U.S. Supreme Court as the final bastion of appeal in this protracted legal odyssey. But the odds hang precariously against him, as rare are the moments when the Supreme Court elects to cast its gaze upon such disputes, leaving the fortunes of this particular case potentially sealed in the annals of judicial history.
