Canadian player says 888casino owes him CAD 1,267,003 after Floating Dragon glitch, while operator points to technical error

A gambler in Alberta says 888casino removed winnings he says were earned on Pragmatic Play’s Floating Dragon – Year of the Snake, with the dispute now heading toward formal review. For high-risk operators, the useful part is not the headline number; it is the familiar problem of what happens when a game produces payouts the operator later treats as invalid.

1. James Kotylak, 42, of Alberta, told Gaming America that he won about $930,000 on March 16, 2026 while playing Floating Dragon – Year of the Snake. He says 888casino sent him 15 congratulatory emails after the win, reflecting the number of times he hit a winning round.
2. Kotylak says he later tried to cash out CAD 47,000, at which point 888casino blocked the withdrawal and removed the winnings from his account. His position is that the casino owes him CAD 1,267,003 in winnings.
3. 888casino says the money was removed because of a technical glitch, not a valid win. The issue, according to Kotylak, sits inside a broader jackpot error across Evoke’s gambling brands, with 35,072 jackpots paid in error by the machines.
4. Kotylak says he continued to gamble after the issue was identified and was able to place 734 additional spins. He is now trying to obtain records of his gameplay and an independent adjudication service to review the case.
5. 888casino has pointed him to eCOGRA, but eCOGRA has said Canadian players are outside its jurisdiction for now. A separate intervention by the Gibraltar Gaming Division in May found a contractual enforceability issue that would need to be reviewed by a judge.

For PSPs, acquirers, and operators in high-risk verticals, this is the part that matters: once a game error is logged, the dispute shifts from “did the player win?” to “what does the contract say, what was the system state, and who is allowed to adjudicate it?”