Lawsuits and Casinos

07.1.2008 | 5:31 pm | casinos

A top casino in Las Vegas filed a $50,000 lawsuit for an unpaid convention bill for 2007 All-Star Week. The NBA were implicated in the lawsuit but this was found to be a mistake and that an administrative error had been made. The lawsuit should only have been filed against Alonzo Mourning Charities Inc and not against NBA Entertainment and NBA Properties.

On 15 February 2007, there was a silent auction, a charity billiards tournament and an online promotional video at the Wynn Las Vegas Casino.

It is not the first time that the particular casino has filed a lawsuit, as a $400,000 gambling debt was retrieved from a retired basketball star Charles Barkley, together with $40,000 to pay for District Attorney fees.

There have been other cases where casinos themselves have been sued for allowing people to gamble. Two Las Vegas Casinos – the Las Vegas Hilton and the Mandalay Bay hotel-casino were sued by Stephen Roel, a long-term customer with a credit limit of $50,000. One weekend, Roel drank heavily and lost $117,000 at the Hilton. The bosses there gave him an additional $840,000 in credit. In the same weekend Roel also had a credit extension of $100,000 at the Mandalay Bay and continued to give him credit, knowing that he was not in a fit state to gamble. In the lawsuit, Stephen Roel was not only wanting the debts that he had accumulated to be recovered, but also compensation and punitive damages.

The particular case raises an interesting question on who is responsible for gambling debts – should it be the gambler or does the casino have some responsibility not to accept bets from people not in a fit state to gamble?