By Ben Greening City Hall car park resembled an Atlantic City casino this week after one of the automatic ticket machines spat out a small fortune in quarters and dollar coins.

Beverly Griffin accidentally hit the jackpot after she inserted her parking money as usual on Wednesday morning.

"I put my quarter in, but it got jammed,'' she explained.

Instead of receiving a sticker for her trouble, the unsuspecting dentist's receptionist was swamped by a torrent of coins which, after being counted up, amounted to a total of $77.75.

"It was like Christmas and New Year's and Atlantic City all rolled into one,'' Ms Griffin said. "Luckily there was someone nice near by who lent me the use of her plastic bag to collect all the money in.'' Ms Griffin explained that this was not the first time the parking machines in Hamilton had malfunctioned.

"When you're racing to get to work in the morning you really want the machines to work. Unfortunately they always seem to be acting up,'' she said.

"Sometimes they give you your money back,'' Ms Griffin added, "and sometimes they just keep it without dispensing a ticket.'' She added: "I am going to give all the money back to the Corporation of Hamilton, but I hope this makes them sit up and pay attention.'' Corporation of Hamilton secretary Roger Sherratt said plans are underway to combat parking machine problems.

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