Gambling Losses Lawsuit Filed in Las Vegas

March 10, 2014 by

gambling-losses-lawsuit-2There are certain ethical guidelines that have to be followed when you’re dealing with customers who are gambling. The general idea is that you can’t take advantage of anyone who is in a state where they are not able to control their decision-making. There are specific laws in place to protect people in this type of condition, and there are also laws they make it illegal to try to put people in this condition for the purpose of getting them to make ill-advised wagers. One gambler is suing the Downtown Grand in Las Vegas for allegedly violating these laws.

About the Gambling Losses Lawsuit

The gambler’s name is Mark Johnston, and he’s 52 years old. He lost a total of about $500,000 on a number of table games over the Super Bowl weekend, and his argument is that he was completely drunk. His games of choice were Pai Gow and Blackjack, and he says that he didn’t actually know about how much he had lost at the games until the following day.

In the state of Nevada, there are specific laws against allowing people who are visibly drunk from placing bets, and they also cannot be given free drinks by the establishment in question. If the allegations are true, then the Downtown Grand would have violated both of these measures.

Johnston’s lawyer is Sean Lyttle, and he has said that the Downtown Grand is going after his client for putting a stop-payment on the payments that were to be made to casino to cover his losses. On top of looking to get his gambling losses overturned, he’s also looking to receive damages from the casino for damage to his reputation which he says could hurt his business with real estate and car sales.

Other Similar Cases

While this case is fairly atypical, a 2009 case had one gambler suing a casino from Las Vegas saying that they drugged him and kept him drunk while he ran up more than $125 million in losses. They eventually came to a deal that kept him out of jail.

posted in Casino News • No Comments

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.