Due to underage gambling, The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board has reached a decision to sanction two casino operators with fines. The board approved this during a session of consent agreements, related to their Office of Enforcement Counsel. Now, because of neglectful behavior and not complying with mandatory regulations, Sands Casino Resort and the Meadows Racetrack and Casino will have to pay $242,500 in total for offenses relating to allowing underage persons to gamble at their sites.
Penalties for Underage Gambling
Legal age for engaging in gambling activities is 21, a rule set by Pennsylvania state. However, this requirement has been broken by Sands Casino Resort and the Meadows Racetrack and Casino. Despite being offered fake identification, two casino operators will suffer consequences for not detecting this and allowing illegal activities in their operations.
Sands Casino Resort belongs to the Sands Bethworks Gaming, LLC which, with the recent uncovering of underage gaming in their casino facilities, will have to pay $120,000. In addition, their employees granted free slot games but weren’t permitted to do so at the time, and now it has resulted in an additional $110,000 fine.
The operator which will also be faced with a monetary penalty is the Meadows Racetrack and Casino. They are owned by Gaming and Leisure Properties and operated by Penn National Gaming. Since they’ve only had one incident which involved underage gaming, their fine is significantly smaller. In fact, they are due to pay $12,500 which is a rather insignificant amount compared to the Sands penalty.
Official Press Release
According to a press release, Sands has counted 11 incidents, involving underage gaming. On the record, there were two eighteen-year-old females, visiting casino floor and playing slot games. An eighteen-year-old female was given permission to play table games and consume alcohol. Another case involved a nineteen-year-old female and three nineteen-year-old males, caught on the gaming floor while playing slot games.
A couple of twenty-year-olds were also caught in unlawful transgressions in the casino. Furthermore, one male was enabled to drink alcohol and play tables games while another male had access to slots. On the other hand, a female was able to drink alcohol as well as play slot games. The last case prior to the fine was connected to an 18-year old male who had access to tables games for two days and kept drinking alcohol.
In the Sands case, it’s been revealed that the reason why these transgressions kept on occurring is due to nearby shopping complex, regularly visited by a large number of young people.
When it comes to offering free slots without authorization, it was uncovered that the casino in question gave permission about 6428 times between 2015 and 2016 which reached over $1 million.
As already mentioned, for the Meadows Racetrack and Casino, one incident was uncovered and fined with $12,500. In this particular case, an 18-year old was served alcohol on the gaming floor and was allowed to participate in table games.
Overall, because of the lack of vigilance which resulted in underage gambling and alcohol consumption, both casino operators will have to pay monetary penalties.
