Pittsburgh Casino Fined for Underage Gamblers
A casino in Pittsburgh, PA, Rivers Casino, has been fined by the state gaming regulated because two teenagers managed to gamble there for a few minutes each last year.The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board imposed a $16,000 fine on Rivers Casino through a consent agreement between the board and Holdings Acquisition Company, the franchise which owns the casino. The casino was accused of allowing a fifteen year old girl gamble for approximately 17 minutes on October 14, 2009. Also, they are accused of allowing a fourteen year old boy to play slots for about four minutes on December 13, 2009 before he was apprehended. No one under the age of eighteen is allowed to be on the casino floor, and no one under the age of 21 is permitted to play slot machines according to state law.
Rivers Casino’s director of business development and community issued the following statement regarding the fines and the casino’s underage gamblers. “Rivers Casino takes this incident very seriously…that’s why we monitor our floors twenty-four, seven and immediately report any occurrence, such as these, to the state. We’d like to remind parents and guardians that bringing minors onto the gaming floor is strictly prohibited.” Though the casino is trying to clean up the incident with various public relations releases, it may take some time before the community and neighboring states have the confidence restored into the casino. Unfortunately, there is no casino that can bear the brunt of bad publicity now and the unfortunate incident with underage gambling is a big one. Casinos around the nation have the basic rule of no underage gambling and an infringement of that rule can mean a bad reputation for the casino. With the amount of competition among casinos today that means that the Pittsburg Rivers Casino has some catch-up to do in terms of building up its reputation for success. Neighboring casinos are jumping on the problem and advertising their own virtues. It will be difficult for Rivers Casino to rebuild its own reputation for fair gaming and strict rules. It may take a few months for the casino’s promoters to create promotions and advertisements that bring in new customers and help return revenues to what they were pre-incident.
Tags: crime, fine, Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, Rivers Casino
