ATLANTIC CITY: Three casinos fined for underage gambling

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February 21, 2008


Three casinos fined for underage gambling

By WILLIAM H. SOKOLIC
Courier-Post Staff

Underage gambling has long been a thorn in the side of casinos and gaming regulators.

Despite efforts to combat the situation, the system is not perfect, and Wednesday, the Casino Control Commission fined three casinos.

The Borgata received the first such levies in its almost five-year history.

Borgata, Trump Taj Mahal and Tropicana will fork over a combined $155,000 for the Casino Revenue Fund. Borgata was also fined $75,000 for serving alcohol to six teenagers, ages 15 to 19, at the B-Bar on the casino floor.

The largest fine -- $105,000 -- went to Borgata, which took more than a year to detect a 19-year-old who earned a rated status as a table game player and the freebies that accompany the rating. The teen visited Borgata 10 times from Aug. 26, 2005, to Sept. 5, 2006, lost about $9,000 playing poker and blackjack and received more than $1,000 in comps. On the 11th visit, a dealer finally asked for ID and the jig was up.

Just before 3 a.m. on Aug. 15, 2006, a 16-year-old bought several drinks at the B-Bar without being asked for identification. He distributed the drinks to several friends. A security supervisor noticed the group less than 20 minutes later and summoned two bouncers. The six were carded, then escorted to the security office. The two 15-year-olds were visibly drunk, slurred their speech and were unable to walk straight.

Security shift manager Thomas Gable did not notify the Division of Gaming Enforcement as required, but he did file an incident report the following day, also required. Because he failed to call the DGE, the commission fined Gable $1,000.

"We have a reward program to identify underage persons on the floor or in a bar," said Joseph Corbo, Borgata vice president and general counsel. "These were an aberration."

Borgata has a zero-tolerance policy,, Corbo said. Underage people are permitted by law to walk through a casino floor, but Borgata bans that. The casino hotel also offers $50 rewards to employees who turn in underage people caught drinking or gambling. Employees can also be reprimanded if they fail to card anyone who looks younger than 25. The hotel suspended the B-Bar bartender for three days without pay and issued a warning that another such incident would result in termination.

The program is so successful that young people of legal age complain of being carded too often, he said.

"They can now go to a security booth and have their hand stamped rather than produce an ID each time," Corbo said.

The agency fined Tropicana $10,000 for letting an 18-year-old play slots in August, and Trump Taj Mahal $40,000 for four underage violations, also in August.

At the Tropicana, two DGE investigators alerted a security officer about the suspected underage gambler. She failed to produce identification, then admitted her real age. It was the casino's seventh underage gambling violation. The other six produced $60,000 in fines. The Tropicana said it ejected six underage people from the casino floor last year and arrested 33.

The four caught at the Taj Mahal ranged from 18 to 20 years old and were all slot players. The Taj received fines of $120,000 for seven previous violations. The casino ejected, arrested, escorted out or prevented from entering almost 1,600 individuals as of September 2007.

The Taj has an incentive program that pays employees $100 to detect underage gamblers. In addition, employees are trained in and must pass an online test on underage gambling and drinking prevention.

"This is required by all employees," said Loretta I. Pickus, vice president of legal affairs from Trump Taj Mahal.

2007 BY THE NUMBERS
23,753 underage individuals were blocked from entering casinos.

34,279 underage individuals were escorted out of casinos.

68 underage individuals were found gambling at table games.

313 underage individuals were found gambling at slot machines.

16 underage individuals were found consuming alcohol.

357 underage gamblers were taken into custody.

50 underage individuals were taken into custody for other reasons.

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Posted on Thu, Feb. 21, 2008


Borgata fined for minor's play

Casino penalized $105,000 for underage high roller.

By Suzette Parmley

Philly Inquirer Staff Writer

He bought more than $34,000 worth of chips, lost more than $9,000, and rubbed elbows with high rollers at the poker and blackjack tables at the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa.
His regular patronage earned him in excess of $1,000 worth of complimentary goods and services. And when he first walked through the doors of the youth-oriented casino in 2005, he was just 19 years old - in a state where the legal age for gambling is 21.

He was 20 when state gambling regulators finally caught up with him in 2006, and yesterday, the New Jersey Casino Control Commission imposed on the Borgata the highest underage-gambling fine ever on a casino: $105,000.

"The commission takes underage gambling very seriously," said Dan Heneghan, spokesman for the commission. "This is a case where an individual came into the Borgata on multiple occasions over a period of more than a year and repeatedly played table games.

"He had repeated contact with multiple Borgata employees who did not verify his age," he said. "As a result, the commission feels that a fine of this magnitude was appropriate."

Besides the $105,000 fine, the Borgata was fined $75,000 for allowing six underage patrons to drink in a casino bar, and a security manager there was fined $1,000 for not immediately reporting them to state gambling regulators.

The Borgata was not the only casino that got into trouble yesterday for allowing underage gamblers onto its premises. The commission also fined the Trump Taj Mahal and Tropicana, but their penalties were substantially lower.

The Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort was fined $40,000 for allowing four underage customers to gamble there last August. And the Tropicana Casino & Resort was fined $10,000 for allowing an underage gambler to play that same month.

In those cases, the teens were playing slot machines, according to Heneghan.

"In the Borgata case, you had an underage gambler who had extensive contact with Borgata employees, such as dealers and [table] game supervisors," he said, "whereas in the other cases, they had limited contact."

According to the 16-page complaint filed with the commission's Division of Gaming Enforcement, the teen got a Borgata player's club card on Aug. 26, 2005.

"They should have questioned his age," Heneghan said of Borgata employees. "The fact that his play was rated, he was issued complimentaries, all of those factor into how significant the penalty should be."

Rob Stillwell, spokesman for Boyd Gaming Corp. of Las Vegas, which co-owns the Borgata with MGM Mirage, said the casino was vigilant in its efforts to prevent underage gambling, and these were its first such penalties since it opened in July 2003.

"Both incidents were self-reported," he said, "which means we identified them. We take these matters very seriously as evidenced by the fact these are the first incidents of this nature in our five years."

Joseph Corbo, legal counsel for the Borgata, said the casino finally caught the underage gambler when a dealer who recognized him from a previous visit thought he looked underage and asked him to show some identification.

The teen, whose identity was withheld in the complaint because of his age, was stripped by the courts of his driver's license for six months and fined $500.

For the Las Vegas-style megacasino, this is the second high-profile arrest on its casino floors in recent months.

In November, law enforcement officials said they broke up a mob-linked, multimillion-dollar gambling ring at the Borgata. The ring allegedly operated from a high-stakes poker room under the eyes of the casino's 24-hour surveillance system. Since March 2006, the ring has been accused of taking in more than $22 million in sports bets, according to the New Jersey attorney general. Unlike Nevada, New Jersey does not allow sports betting in its casinos.

Almost since its opening, the Borgata has been Atlantic City's top-grossing casino. And it markets itself as the casino for the next generation with its edgy decor and state-of-the-art technology.

But some critics say its pursuit of a youthful clientele has led it to be less watchful for underage customers.

"Of all the gaming casinos down here, Borgata is the one that participates with our responsible-gaming programs the least," said Terry Elman, acting executive director for the Council on Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey, a private, nonprofit agency. "They did not join the corporate membership of the Council on Compulsive Gambling."

"They do not support the school curriculums that we pass out. They have not attended any of the underage-gambling committee meetings we've held."

Stillwell said the Borgata had taken steps through the years to address the problem of underage gambling.

The Borgata, like other casinos in Atlantic City, requires its employees to undergo training to spot underage customers. It says it rewards workers who catch underage gamblers or drinkers - and penalizes employees who do not.

"There are stiff penalties for underage gambling against the individuals that we pursue to the fullest options under the law to prosecute," Stillwell said. "This minor was fined and his license was suspended.

"Ultimately, we did catch him," he said. "We have zero tolerance."

Elman said the fines the commission levies, like yesterday's $231,000 total for underage gambling, went into a pool that funds the council, which does not receive any tax dollars.

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Fri, Feb. 22, 2008

Underage gaming called widespread

Atlantic City casinos say they are vigilant. Some people believe they could do more.

By Suzette Parmley, Amy S. Rosenberg and Jacqueline L. Urgo

Philly Inquirer Staff Writers

ATLANTIC CITY - Underage gamblers show up in municipal court in nearly every day - though their cases pale in comparison with that of Alexander Pawlyk, whose underage gambling adventures in 2005 and 2006 led to a record fine of $105,000 against the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa this week.
Howard Freed, chief municipal prosecutor for Atlantic City, said the city got four to six underage-gambling cases a week - most involving 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds, and most ending, like Pawlyk's case, in a guilty plea, a $500 fine and revocation of driving privileges.

Pawlyk, now 21, of Basking Ridge, N.J., was arrested inside the Borgata on Sept. 5, 2006.

"They should have questioned his age," Casino Control Commission spokesman Daniel Heneghan said of Borgata employees. "The fact that his play was rated, he was issued complimentaries, all of those factor into how significant the penalty should be."

Freed said Pawlyk was "just one of many." He recalled one teenage girl who changed appearances several times to continue gambling. He also recalled a case in which the underage gambler held a license to work in the casinos, which is legal for someone under 21 if the job is not on the casino floor.

He said the underage gamblers in many cases were drawn to the casinos by the popularity of poker on television.

The Tropicana Casino Resort also was penalized Wednesday by the New Jersey Casino Control Commission - getting a $10,000 fine for allowing an underage gambler to play slot machines last August.

The Tropicana's president and chief operating officer said yesterday that his casino was routinely on the lookout for such patrons. He said that in 2007 alone, the Tropicana caught and ejected about 40 underage gamblers.

"Tropicana has a very aggressive, responsible gaming program," Mark Giannantonio said. "With regard to underage gambling, we routinely remind and train our staff - be it security, surveillance or games people - to be diligent in looking for underage patrons, both on the casino floor and in our outlets.

"On a daily basis, our security staff and surveillance staff scan the casino floor, constantly vigilant in looking for underage individuals," he said.

The Trump Taj Mahal Casino was fined $40,000 Wednesday by the gaming commission for allowing four underage customers to gamble there last August.

Tom Hickey, spokesman for Trump Entertainment Resorts Inc., which owns the three Trump casinos in Atlantic City, said the company had a variety of programs aimed directly at combating underage gambling in a comprehensive manner.

The Trump casinos also offer cash rewards to employees who catch underage gamblers or drinkers.

"It's an issue to which we devote significant time and resources because we take it extremely seriously," Hickey said.

Casino Control Commission spokesman Heneghan said the agency has filed 45 underage-gambling complaints against the city's 11 casinos since 2003. Of those, 26 were forfeiture actions, where the casinos refused to pay winnings to an underage player and the money was forfeited to the state.

The other 19 complaints led to a total of $475,000 in fines after the casinos were determined not to have taken appropriate steps to prevent the underage gambling.

Commission data also show that the number of underage people found gambling and taken into custody for gambling has declined since 2003.

In 2003, the number of underage people found gambling at table games or slot machines inside Atlantic City's casinos was 451. Last year there were 381, a decrease of about 16 percent.

There were 395 underage people taken into custody for gambling in 2003. Last year there were 351, a decline of 11 percent.

Terry Elman, the acting executive director of the Council on Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey, a private nonprofit agency, credited stepped-up efforts by the casinos to combat underage gambling on their floors and the council's own aggressive efforts to get into schools to warn young people about gambling. He said the number of underage gamblers turned away from casinos or arrested in New Jersey had been about cut in half - from a high of 144,000 in 2001 to last year's low of 77,000.

Some feel the casinos could do even more.

Dani Harris, a Philadelphia mother whose 20-year-old son was taken into custody for playing slot machines at the Borgata three years ago, said the casinos needed to make it loud and clear that anyone underage caught gambling would be prosecuted.

"There are no signs warning of any prosecution," Harris, 46, said of the Borgata. "You have to tell what the fine is going to be if you're dealing with minors, and that they will lose their license for six months.

"They utterly don't put up the requisite signs," she said.