Mark Loses Entire Life Savings Playing Single Carnival Game
A 30-year-old father from New Hampshire is playing the blame game after he spent his entire life savings on a single carnival game and walked away with nothing.
Well, almost nothing: He did win a giant dreadlocked banana.
Henry Gribbohm of Epsom was playing "Tubs of Fun" at a carnival in Manchester for the chance to win a $300 Xbox Kinect.
The game is simple: You toss a set of balls into a small plastic tub, and if they all stay inside, you win a prize.
Gribbohm told WBZ Boston that he had no problem during practice, but when when playing for keeps, "something changed."
Still, that apparently didn't stop Gribbohm from dropping $300 on the game. And then going home and grabbing his entire life savings — $2,600 — which he promptly lost as well.
"You just get caught up in the whole ‘I’ve got to win my money back,'" he told the CBS affiliate.
When Gribbohm came back the next day and complained, the game's operator agreed to give him back $600.
But Gribbohm, who wants it all back, has filed a fraud complaint with Manchester Police, and is considering taking legal action.
Meanwhile, Fiesta Shows, which runs the carnival, says the Tubs of Fun booth is managed by an independent contractor who will be sitting the next carnival out until the company can "get to the bottom" of what happened.
Fiesta's VP John Flynn, however, expressed some skepticism about Gribbohm's claim, saying it's "pretty next to impossible" to lose that kind of cash playing a carnival game.
