As far as casino heists go, one that was pulled off over at the Oaklawn Racing Casino Resort in Hot Springs, Arkansas recently was hardly the crime of the century, in fact it could be described as something of a smash and grab, but without the smash.
It was a week ago today, that saw the casino losing some $17,000 of $500 denomination casino chips, and it didn’t take very long for the casinos’ security team to work out who had stolen them.
The casino resort is undergoing some major renovations at the moment, and as such one player decided that the chaos caused by those renovations could be a way for him to grab a handful of casino chips from one of the Blackjack tables and hotfoot it out of the casino without being noticed.
However, in any casino, the eye in the sky is always watching, and whilst that player, who police believe is Derrick Patrick Belton Jr., a 42 year old local man, allegedly did manage to leg it out of the casino with a handful of high valued casino chips after grabbing them off a Blackjack table, before starting to play he had handed over his players card to earn comps on his gambling action.
So, the police who arrived shortly after the incident only had to match up the image on his driving license, a copy of which was taken when joining the players club with images caught on the CCTV to make a positive identification of him and it wasn’t long before he was arrested.
As an added security precaution, the casino management team decided to immediately pull all $500 chips from circulation in the casino to deter anyone using the chips that were stolen, and therefore instantly rendering them worthless.
If Belton is convicted, he could face a jail sentence of a hefty 10 years, he has since been released on a $5000 bond and will have his day in court next month.
David is a keen slots player and has spent countless hours playing both online and in land based casinos. He enjoys sharing his knowledge of the gambling industry and keeps a keen eye out for the latest online slot games. Contact him by sending an email to david@casinochronicle.net.
