High Stakes Gamblers Were Allowed to Abuse Dealers, Throw Bananas, Urinate on Walls
Transcripts of a May hearing before the Mohegan Sun tribal gaming commission reveal that high rollers were allowed to abuse dealers, urinate on walls, throw bananas at fellow gamblers and expect rules to be bent at the tables.
"All men are created equal except in the casino," Glen Costales, the pit manager, said at a hearing before a tribal gaming commission in May. Transcripts of the hearing were obtained by The Associated Press. "If it's a premium player, he gets away with a lot more than the five-dollar player would get away with."
Costales was testifying in support of a pit boss, Maria DeGiacomo, who was fired this year after the casino accused her of colluding with a high roller by allowing late bets at a blackjack table.
That high roller was Matthew Menchetti, who frequented the casino and lost as much as $50,000 and a lifetime total of over $1 million.
From the Las Vegas Sun:
Casino security flagged his play as suspicious in February and asked state police to arrest him and two dealers, but the detective concluded DeGiacomo and another dealer apparently took it upon themselves to keep Menchetti happy and playing, according to a police report, and no charges were filed.
Shane Kaufmann, a vice president for a branch of the Transport Workers Union in Las Vegas, claims that rules are frequently bent in order to accommodate high rollers.
"The casinos pretend they have rules that are set in stone, like going into a bank or dealing with a police station. Are they supposed to allow late bets? Absolutely not. Do they do it all the time? All the time," said Kaufmann, a dealer who sees plenty of crude behavior himself. "The abuse, the screaming, the cheating, the sexual harassment. Throwing things around. It's worse all the time.”
- Nagesh Rath, Gambling911.com
