Atlantic City Casinos fined for unshuffled cards, other breaches

ATLANTIC CITY, N.J. — Two Atlantic City casinos were fined nearly $200,000 for violations including using unshuffled cards and not having enough security on hand, state casino regulators announced Monday.

Bally's Atlantic City was fined $105,000 for allowing people on the self-exclusion list to gamble, letting an underage patron gamble and not fully staffing required security positions.

The Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort was fined more than $91,000 for using unshuffled cards for 3½ hours in games of mini-baccarat.

The state also confiscated more than $4,000 won by self-excluded gamblers at the Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa.

Executives with Bally's and the Taj Mahal's parent companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday. But in documents submitted to the state Division of Gaming Enforcement, the companies admitted the violations and detailed corrective actions they had taken, including suspending or firing employees involved.

Bally's was hit with four of the five fines announced by the division, including a $70,000 penalty for violating its own security plans. In documents submitted to the state, Bally's acknowledged it had combined security locations and did not fully staff required security positions from Oct. 2010 through July 2011.

The casino said it had suspended a security director that oversaw staffing, gave verbal instructions to all security shift managers, and issued a memo that had to read and signed acknowledging that Bally's cannot make security staffing adjustments without state approval.

Bally's also was fined for allowing underage gamblers and allowing people who had placed themselves on New Jersey's self-exclusion list to gamble.

The largest fine, $91,236, was imposed on the Taj Mahal, which admitted that on Dec. 10, 2011, it failed to shuffle eight decks of cards before using them at a mini-baccarat game. The casino used the unshuffled cards for 3½ hours, and its surveillance department did not detect that the cards had not been shuffled.

The Taj Mahal fired nine employees involved, including the shift manager, three assistant managers and four dealers. The casino also has since installed a $2.2 million digital recording system which it says has greatly improved its surveillance capabilities, and the surveillance department has added eight officers.

The state also confiscated $4,350 that the Borgata seized from three gamblers it learned were on the self-exclusion list.

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