The UK Gambling Commission have not only pulled the personal gaming licenses of three senior managers of Caesars Entertainment, but they have also hit the company with a record £13 million fine, for failings they deem to be so serious the company needs to be taught a lesson.
What the UKGC had become aware of was the way that Caesars Entertainment treated their high rolling players, regarding the company allowing them to carry on gambling for some very high stake amounts, even though some of them were displaying very clear signs of having a possible gambling problem.
Whilst spotting potential problem gamblers can be difficult, it was discovered that several players have been allowed to continue gambling even when they had told Caesars Entertainment, they were experiencing gambling problems.
One of those high rollers had self-excluded themselves but was permitted to gamble at one of their casinos and had racked up losses of £323,000 in just over a year.
One self employed nanny had told the company she was borrowing money from her family and using an overdraft to gamble with having lost all of her savings at one of the casinos owned and operated by Caesars Entertainment, but they still let her gamble.
On another occasion a postman wagered and lost over £15,000 over a 44 day period and at no point in time was he asked for any information as to where he got his funds to gamble from, which is something casino operators are required to do when someone is gambling for high stakes and losing some huge amounts of cash too.
The UK Gambling Commission is also taking an urgent look at casino reward schemes and looking at ways all of their license holders can put into place a system whereby those schemes are used to spot potential problem gamblers.