We've all heard the stories of a Gambling Addict destroying a family by stealing money or destroying a company by embezzlement.
Casinos have access to the financial records of their patrons.
They know their paychecks and assets.
Casinos are the ones profiting from CRIME.
Casinos face challenge to pay back stolen money - Greens
Thursday, 18 October, 2012
A Green Party bill to force casinos to pay back some of the proceeds of crime they receive through gambling was drawn from the ballot today.
Green Party Co-leader Metiria Turei’s Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009 (Application to Casinos) Amendment Bill would impose a special obligation on casinos to return profits derived from significant criminal activity and which they should have been able to detect.
"I urge all political parties to back my Bill to stop casinos profiting from crime," Mrs Turei said.
"When problem gamblers are driven to crime everyone suffers except the casino, which pockets the profits.
"When problem gamblers are jailed they lose their job and are separated from family and friends. Those they stole from are also worse off. The only winner is the casino.
"There’s established international evidence that casinos benefit from crime and this is the industry John Key wants to do a deal with.
"My Bill specifically includes casinos in the Criminal Proceeds of Crime (Recovery) Amendment Act and introduces a new legal test that makes them responsible for forfeiting proceeds, if they allowed the gambling to occur by not using the best methods to detect problem gambling and crime.
"My Bill will ensure the proceeds of significant criminal activity are returned to people they've been stolen from.
"Casinos have access to advanced technologies for detecting criminal activity and fraud. They have host responsibility programmes that should ensure alarm bells go off when risky gambling occurs.
"Prosecutions involving huge amounts of money stolen then gambled by high rollers at SkyCity casinos, often tracked by casino VIP programmes, raise questions about whether the casino could have done more to detect and deter the crimes.
"Other laws and regulations are in place to ensure casinos step up their efforts to detect crime.
"My Bill is about ensuring they return criminal proceeds that they should never have benefited from," Mrs Turei said.
http://www.voxy.co.nz/politics/casinos-face-challenge-pay-back-stolen-money-greens/5/138135
Green Party Co-leader Metiria Turei’s Criminal Proceeds (Recovery) Act 2009 (Application to Casinos) Amendment Bill would impose a special obligation on casinos to return profits derived from significant criminal activity and which they should have been able to detect.
"I urge all political parties to back my Bill to stop casinos profiting from crime," Mrs Turei said.
"When problem gamblers are driven to crime everyone suffers except the casino, which pockets the profits.
"When problem gamblers are jailed they lose their job and are separated from family and friends. Those they stole from are also worse off. The only winner is the casino.
"There’s established international evidence that casinos benefit from crime and this is the industry John Key wants to do a deal with.
"My Bill specifically includes casinos in the Criminal Proceeds of Crime (Recovery) Amendment Act and introduces a new legal test that makes them responsible for forfeiting proceeds, if they allowed the gambling to occur by not using the best methods to detect problem gambling and crime.
"My Bill will ensure the proceeds of significant criminal activity are returned to people they've been stolen from.
"Casinos have access to advanced technologies for detecting criminal activity and fraud. They have host responsibility programmes that should ensure alarm bells go off when risky gambling occurs.
"Prosecutions involving huge amounts of money stolen then gambled by high rollers at SkyCity casinos, often tracked by casino VIP programmes, raise questions about whether the casino could have done more to detect and deter the crimes.
"Other laws and regulations are in place to ensure casinos step up their efforts to detect crime.
"My Bill is about ensuring they return criminal proceeds that they should never have benefited from," Mrs Turei said.
http://www.voxy.co.nz/politics/casinos-face-challenge-pay-back-stolen-money-greens/5/138135
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2 comments:
MR...casinos in the US may keep financial records for most slots gamblers especially, via loyalty cards that most gamblers seem to have, but in Australia/NZ the potential for rorting by the gambling industry is even worse than elsewhere!
Our gambling venues have assiduously avoided for decades, provision of the very financial statements for slots gamblers, that would obviously point to likely addictive gambling. Hence by omission [supported by our govts] the gambling industry can claim 'no prior knowledge' of any likely usage of embezzled funds. It is a neat trick...sadly even the activists here for gambling reforms have not yet apparently come to grips with the lack of transaction records for slots gamblers...and what the lack of records allows to happen... right under our noses!
Bill Kearney has been writing about this for years and Bill is spot on I believe. It amazes me that the issue has not been better picked up upon in Australia. Not all slots gamblers here [by a long shot] have their gambling spending recorded on loyalty cards and none have 'blanket coverage' ie their spending recorded 'across the board' even state-wide!
Individual gambling venues in Australia are a lot closer together than US casinos are, so any slots gambler is quite likely to attend 4 or 5 venues for gambling. Addicted gamblers can easily 'venue hop' so optional OR mandatory individual 'casino customer cards' would not work so well here as in the US to detect over-gambling. However that IS what is required to keep track of customer over-spending, especially to get alerts to embezzlement etc.
Consequently any move towards 'mandatory / state-wide customer cards'has been widely refused by the gambling industry under the lofty banner of 'losing freedom rights' and we have played along with that ploy, to our own detriment. It is rubbish and until we face the fact that all slots gamblers MUST have mandatory customer ID cards that record individual spending patterns and amounts...we will never get full and effective gambling reforms.
Quite right! It's always amazing the illogic and pretense too many politicians repeat to the detriment of their constituents.
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