Sheldon Adelson’s Sands Bethlehem Casino is Fined for Underage Gambling
During 2014, Las Vegas Sands Corp. CEO Sheldon Adelson explained to Betty Liu of Bloomberg one of the reasons he is on a crusade to end online gambling in the USA.
At the Venetian his bricks and mortar casino, that they are not supposed to allow people who are under-aged to gamble. How can this be done on the internet, he said that there is no technology that kids can’t get around.
Right or wrong (SPOILER: he’s wrong), at his land - based casino properties, this non-existent technology has become a problem on his land-based properties, and in particular at the Sands Casino Resort in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. The Sands Bethworks Gaming LLC, who is the operator of the casino and a part of Mr. Adelson’s gaming empire, has been fined umpteen times by the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB) for for this very problem, underage gambling violations.
In three of the instances people younger than 21 years of age, figured out how to get round the system and gambled real money at the Sands Bethlehem they were self-reported by the casino. In a press release, the PGCB said that that Sands had been $36,000 in total for allowing these three people to be able to spend approximately nine hours combined on the gaming floor.
More information about these three interlopers and how they entertained themselves has been revealed:
A Manuella Disla 20 year old, walked around with her parents gained access toi the gaming floor from the bus terminal when she presented a New York Grey Cadets credentia, an this was accepted, even though this isn’t considered to be a valid identification for entering a Pennsylvania casino. She gambled n ne slot machine the exited, she was then denied re-entry at the market entrance/exit. She apparently claimed that she was unaware of the legal age of entering a Pennsylvania casino, She spent about one hour and fifty minutes on the gaming floor.
The second person is a 19-year-old also stopped at the market entrance, and was suspected of having gained entrance earlier when he used someone else’s identification. Mr. Yile Zhong, became very agitated and aggressive towards the security personnel, he was observed being taken to the ground and detained, Mr Zhong spent two hours and 23 minutes at multiple tables. He was also permanently barred from the Sands Bethlehem and was also cited by the Pennsylvania State Police because he was carrying a false identification card.
Another 19-year-old gained entrance through the main entrance, where he used an expired identification that belonged to someone else. Alexandra Tavarez, was on the gaming floor for approximately four hours and forty five minutes before she left, and then was denied re-entry five minutes later. She, she also been permanently barred from the Sands casino and also cited by the state police for carrying false Identification.
A previous time that Sands was fined by the PGCB was June 2014, when they were hit with an a fine of $85,000 for six incidents of underage gambling that spanned from June 2013 through to January 2014. The ages of these tens was 17-20 years old and two of then teens were also kown to imbibe alcohol while on the casino floor.
The Sands Casino attorney, Fred Kraus, attempted to defend his client in the Lehigh Valley newspaper saying that although these teens gambled while underage, he said that they were caught by the casino employees
All of these accidents when a security officer missed the underage of these teens, another casino employee noticed the teens and challenged them, this resulted in the discovery of the teens and thus the employee reported them in each case.
There is more, since June 2010, Sheldon Adelson’s Pennsylvania casino was also given fines of a total of $341,000 for thirty underage gambling violations. That’s 30 times people under 21 years of age were caught how many have slipped under the net and gone home with their winnings? Or went home having lost a lot of money and gone home determined to return to win it back.
