By Randy Tucker
The Cincinnati Enquirer

You might feel like a winner when you fold one of the colorful new $20 bills into your pocket, but you have no chance of hitting the jackpot on some slot machines at local casinos.

That's because many slot machines simply won't accept the new bills.

The same is true at Kroger Co. supermarkets and other stores across the country, where shoppers have discovered that the notes are about as negotiable as Monopoly money at self-service checkout counters.

The problem is that the new 20s started circulating before the manufacturers of slot machines, automated payment machines and even ATMs were able to upgrade the software in all of their machines to recognize the new bills.

"This has become a routine problem in our industry,'' Larry Buck, general manager at the Belterra Casino Resort in Switzerland County, Ind., said. "It happens every time the government issues a new bill.''

Compounding the problem for casinos is the fact that they are regulated.

Before Belterra can install new microchips in its slot machines, the Indiana Gaming Commission must approve the chips, which further delays upgrading the machines, Buck said.

So far, the casino has installed new chips in about 400 of its 1,500slot machines. It expects to have all the machines upgraded within two weeks, he said.

"It's a time-consuming process, but it's pretty much all we're going to be doing in the slot machine area this week and next week,'' Buck said.

A spokesman for the Argosy Casino in Lawrenceburg, Ind., said about 80 percent of the casino's 2,200 slot machines have been upgraded with new software and all the machines should accept the new $20 bills within several weeks. Calls to the Grand Victoria casino in Rising Sun, Ind., were not immediately returned Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Kroger said it will take about six weeks for the company that manufactures its self-checkout machines to upgrade them.

"There's a cashier there (at the self-checkout lanes) anyway, so there's really no inconvenience for our customers,'' Gary Rhodes, a Kroger spokesman, said. "They can go to the cashier and exchange their new bills for the old 20s and then use the machine.''

The first calls about rejection of the new 20s started coming in to the U.S. Treasury Department's Bureau of Engraving and Printing early this week, frustrating officials who had worked to overcome the vending machine problems that followed the 1998 redesign of the bill.

"We learned from our lack of outreach last time, and we really made an effort to reach out to thousands of business industries and associations so they can start working with their customers and members," said Dawn Haley, spokeswoman for the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.

Vending machine manufacturers received test decks of currency to try out on their software and hardware.

But nobody thought about the automated payment machines until the first calls started coming in to the bureau after the new currency was put into circulation.

"The self-service group is really new," Haley said.

E-mail rtucker@enquirer.com.