Slot machines at the River Rock Casino in Richmond, B.C. June 11, 2009.John Lehmann/The Globe and Mail
A British Columbia man who asked to be banned from a local casino to control his gambling says he was still allowed to return whenever he wanted - that is, until he finally won a $42,000 jackpot.
That's when 32-year-old Michael Lee of Victoria says the B.C. Lottery Corp. enforced its self-exclusion program for the first time in almost three years, refusing to hand over the prize money and showing him the door.
Mr. Lee's case stands in contrast to the experience of a Vancouver-area woman who says she was allowed to gamble away $330,000 while under a self-imposed ban that was never enforced.
Both are suing B.C.'s embattled lottery corporation, which made headlines this month when it became the first jurisdiction to embrace online casino-style gambling.
In response to critics, the lottery corporation and the provincial minister with jurisdiction over it noted that problem gamblers enrolled in the self-exclusion program will be banned from the website. Gaming Minister Rich Coleman conceded, however, that the self-exclusion program has problems.
Critics say the two cases demonstrate that self-exclusion programs simply don't work, and only give false hope to thousands of gamblers who are begging for help to prevent them from wagering their way to financial ruin.
Mr. Lee's lawyer, Joshua Weiszner, said his client signed up for the program at the Chances casino in Duncan in 2007 because he wanted to keep his gambling under control.
But that never happened until this past January, when he won $42,000 on a slot machine, Mr. Weiszner said.
"He had a young family and he wanted to curb his gambling habits, so he signed up for one of these agreements," the lawyer, who filed a statement of claim last month, said in an interview Monday.
"The only time the casino offered their so-called assistance to him was when he won the jackpot, when he was denied the prize and asked to leave."
Since April of 2009, the lottery corporation has refused to pay winnings to excluded players - a change in the policy the corporation says is meant to remove the financial incentive to return to the casino.
However, Mr. Weiszner notes the change was made after Mr. Lee signed up, and the corporation's failure to prevent him from gambling indicates they weren't living up to their end of the agreement.
The other lawsuit, filed earlier this month, involves a 54-year-old woman from Delta, south of Vancouver, who signed up for the self-exclusion program in June of 2007.
But Joyce Ross says she was back at the casino two weeks later, and lost about $330,000 during the next three years. She called B.C. Lottery Corp. asking that her photo be recirculated at nearby casinos and attended gambling counselling paid for by the Crown corporation, but was never once stopped from placing a bet, says her statement of claim.
Both lawsuits contain allegations that haven't been tested in court, and B.C. Lottery Corp. hasn't filed statements of defence.
The lottery corporation said no one was available for an interview Monday.
A spokesperson for Mr. Coleman said he, too, was unavailable.
Gambling expert Robert Williams said more than a dozen people in Ontario who were allowed to gamble despite signing up for a self-exclusion program have sued that province's lottery corporation, and they've won.
"These agreements have almost no teeth because there's no effective protection mechanisms," said Prof. Williams, of the University of Lethbridge and a research co-ordinator for the Alberta Gaming Research Institute.
"So you've offered false hope to these gamblers who believed that someone was finally going to put some external constraints on their behaviour. And they go on to lose lots of money."
Prof. Williams said provincial governments should look to jurisdictions in Europe and Asia, many of which require ID from everyone entering a casino.
That makes it easy to stop banned gamblers.
"There's very simple ways of doing it that provincial governments are aware of," Prof. Williams said.
Shane Simpson, the housing and social development critic for British Columbia's Opposition NDP, agreed.
"The program has failed because of lack of enforcement," Mr. Simpson said. "When somebody takes personal responsibility and signs up for a self-exclusion program, and the government doesn't enforce the program, you're putting people in a worse place than if they did nothing."
James Keller