Casino Pays Wrong Guy $1 Million, Then Second Kevin Lewis Pops Up

A casino paid the wrong guy on Saturday. Well, a lot of casinos probably paid the wrong guy a little something on Saturday. But the Horseshoe Casino Cincinnati’s blooper was special.

They awarded a man named Kevin Lewis a cool one million dollars.

Then after it was too late for take-backs they realized that they had paid the wrong guy the money. Oopsy.

Yeah, it’s a casino that hasn’t been open too long — just since March. An inexperienced crew is what usually allows the truly spectacular casinos screw-ups like that to take place. I mean, who knew that there were two men in Cincinnati named Kevin Lewis, right?

In this case, the new Horseshoe Casino Cincinnati was promoting themselves with a drawing called the $3 Million Summer Giveaway. It’s just what it sounds like.

They have three drawings, and the three winners each get a million bucks.

Needless to say, the Ohio state gaming commission is investigating to find out what went wrong. But the players didn’t do anything underhanded.

According to a report on Cincinnati.com, Horseshoe spokeswoman Jennifer Kulcyzcki admitted that the casino made a mistake. The men had the same name, were about the same age, lived in the same city, and apparently shared some other identifying information that caused the confusion.

The man wrongly identified as the winner had already accepted the prize and met with the media to talk about his win by the time the casino figured it out.

Gambling 911 said that Horseshoe General Manager Kevin Kline said, “This was our blunder…Horseshoe awarded a $1 million dollar prize to each of the men.”

That means that the $3 million dollar giveaway has blown up into a $4 million dollar promotion. But they’ll probably get it all back on the good publicity, right?

In any case, I think it’s both a generous gesture and the right thing to do.

And now if your name happens to be Kevin Lewis, I guess you’re kicking yourself for not being at the Horseshoe Casino on Saturday.

Horseshoe Casino Cincinnati hasn’t revealed whether or not any employees are being disciplined for paying the wrong guy.

[photo by EMprize via Shutterstock]