Pennsylvania Board Imposes $125K Fine on Casino for Allowing Minors to Gamble
The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board (PGCB) cracked down on Wind Creek Bethlehem with a $125K fine following a series of incidents where underage visitors illegally entered the casino floor, in violation of the state's gambling age requirement of 21 years old. Eleven young guests, spanning ages from 18 to 20, managed to access the gaming floor on 10 different occasions between November 2021 and September 2023, according to LehighValleyLive.com.
As a result of these violations, some of the minors have been permanently barred from stepping foot in Wind Creek Bethlehem again, while some even received citations from the Pennsylvania State Police. The institution will now more prominently display signs detailing the consequences of presenting false IDs to gain access to their facilities. The casino will also display PGCB posters as part of their "What’s Really at Stake? Underage gambling will cost you!" campaign.
As an extra precautionary measure, casino staff will continue to check the identification of patrons who appear to be under 30 years of age. Throughout the period in which the violations occurred, casino staff evaluated 737,257 IDs, preventing 4,779 underage individuals from gambling.
In a separate development, the PGCB also prohibited a couple from visiting any Pennsylvania casinos due to their abandonment of a five-month-old baby in a car while they gambled at Harrah’s Philadelphia Casino & Racetrack in Delaware County for about a half hour. Although they kept the engine running, the outside temperature was a frigid 47 degrees, posing a potential hazard for the child. There were no reports of the baby being injured.
The exclusion list now includes this couple, who will no longer be able to enter any Pennsylvania casino.
In a related matter, the PGCB also declined to remove a woman from the involuntary exclusion list. She was previously penalized in 2017 for leaving a four-year-old alone in a vehicle at a casino, while the temperature reached 95 degrees outside, and the engine was turned off. As mentioned in a PGCB statement, adults are not allowed to leave minors unattended in any areas of a casino as it can create a hazardous and unsafe environment for the children. Doing so not only results in an exclusion from all Pennsylvania casinos, but could also lead to criminal prosecution.
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Source: www.casino.org
