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Three Penn Casinos Get Fined for Underage Gambling

Posted on October 9th, 2010

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In these days of declining profits and an economic downturn, the last thing casinos need would be to be reprimanded and fined for offenses by courts. Unfortunately, this is exactly what is happening in Pennsylvania right now, where casinos are getting penalized for offenses that quite frankly, can be avoided. In the middle of the week, the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board fined Harrah’s Casino and Racetrack in Chester a total of $70,000 for seven counts of allowing gambling by customers below the legal gambling age. In all of the cases, a patron of minor age got to play on the floor and place a bet on the slot machines. The cases occurred from October 1, 2009, and March 21, 2o10, with one of the underage customers also cited by the police of the state for trespassing. The time that underage users spent on the gambling floor before being captured may be from seven minutes to four hours and 17 minutes.

The Race Horse Development and Gaming Act of the state of Pennsylvania prohibits people under the age of 21 to play in slot machines. The law also prevents children under 18 from entering any gambling floor. Harrah’s has been cited for seven cases, four were female customers aged 20 years, and one was a teenager of 19 years. One was a man of 20 years. Raymond S. Angeli , one of the Gaming Control Board’ s commissioners, said in their weekly meeting, “What we’ve seen is a preponderance of young women, underage, getting into casinos all over Pennsylvania. I know you’re all here today. This is a message not only to Harrah’s, it’s a message to everybody. It needs to stop.” He adds, “Whether it’s swipe machines that every casino is going to employ, whether it’s wristbands that you’re going to put on everybody under the age of 30, whether it’s a policy that you’re going to card male and female people under the age of 30, or whether you’re going to force us to have you hire more security at every entrance, it has got to stop.”

Representatives of Harrah’s mentioned at the assembly that the casino employs swipe cards and a kind of bracelet recognition device. They ordered the staff to receive additional rounds of education sessions with emphasis on the policy of the casino of demanding for ID for any patron below the age of 30 and mentioned that the casino has not had another occurance of gambling of minors. In an e-mail, the Marketing and Communications Specialist of Harrah’s, Monica Bersani stated, “Harrah’s Chester has since implemented precautions to avoid those who are under the legal gambling age from entering the casino floor. Harrah’s Chester has implemented ID scanners to all casino floor entrances and also redesigned the casino floor entrance to ensure that all patrons are required to pass through security before entering.”

What happened this week was the second occurance that Harrah’s was penalized for allowing minors to gamble in its facility since its inaugural in 2007. In August 2008, the casino was apprehended for one violation also involving underage gambling and for having arenas of its gaming floor unmonitored by any security. Richard McGarvey, a spokesman for the Gaming Control Board stated on Thursday that the board imposes its fines on a individual basis, adopting into their decision the number of violations, their rigorousness and repetition of the same infractions. The board also penalized another two casino facilities for the same underage offences. Hollywood Casino at Penn National Racecourse was penalized $65,000 and Presque Isle Downs and Casino was also asked to pay $15,000.

On April 17th, a patron who was apparently nineteen year old patron made bets on a coin machine at Presque Downs for around fifteen minutes. The next month, another gambler aged nineteen year old also operated slot machines in the casino for about a half an hour. In the Penn national Racecourse, three under aged persons were allowed to play in the slot machines and another minor was seen in the gambling floor. With these fines imposed on the casinos, it is believed that the gambling facilities of the state, as well as the neighboring ones, will be more vigilant in keeping off underage patrons.