Judge’s ruling: Atlantic Golden Nugget Casino must cash out gamblers’ 1.5 million yuan in chips

Judge’s ruling: Atlantic Golden Nugget Casino must cash in gamblers’ 1.5 million yuan in chips Atlantic City Golden Nugget Casino (Golden Nugget) and 14 Asian...

This casino lawsuit that originated at the end of April this year has attracted the attention of people all over the world in the past few months, because the 14 defendants in the case have undoubtedly realized the "gambler's dream" in people's imagination. They each won tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands in returns with very small chips. The casino was furious and accused the gamblers of fraud, but lacked strong evidence. A Chinese gambler was even pulled out of his casino hotel room in the middle of the night and tortured privately for several hours.

The fact is that the 14 Asian gamblers (mostly Chinese) on the night of the incident found that the cards were dealt in the same order in every round of baccarat they played, so they gradually increased their chips. In the end, they played more than 40 rounds, and everyone made a lot of profits. Casino staff noticed something fishy and intervened to investigate, but found no foul play on the part of the gamblers. Afterwards, the casino determined that the problem lay with the playing cards themselves. Usually, new playing cards purchased by casinos are randomly shuffled by the manufacturer before leaving the factory, so there is usually no need for casinos to wash them again. However, the deck of playing cards used at the time of the incident, manufactured by Gemaco Company of Kansas City, Missouri, had slipped through the net and had not been laundered. But this deck of cards is not arranged in the order of 2, 3, 4, and 5. The manufacturer refused to disclose the specific arrangement rules on the grounds of commercial confidentiality. Although the deck of cards that had not been randomly shuffled was not arranged in the order of Arabic numerals, the gamblers on the night of the incident still saw the pattern, because the order of dealing the cards in each round was the same.

This seemingly unfair game to casinos is not without risks for gamblers. Michael Cho, a 51-year-old Chinese gambler from Ellicott, Maryland, said that although the order of the cards in each round is the same, we cannot confirm whether the next round will suddenly change. Therefore, gamblers are also exposed to risks. This is called gambling. Fortunately, the cards on the gambling table repeated the previous pattern again and again, and continued for more than 40 hands, about 2 and a half hours, before being stopped.

In the end, the casino lost ￥1,536,700, of which ￥558,900 was cashed out on the spot, and the remaining ￥977,800 was refused by the casino and asked the gamblers to return the previous 500,000.

New State Judge James Isman, who presided over the case, believed that on the one hand, the gamblers did not do anything illegal, and secondly, it was the casino's own responsibility to shuffle the cards. Thirdly, the gamblers had no way to confirm that the order of the cards would not change in the next round. Therefore, he ruled that the casino lost the case and must cash in the gamblers' chips.

It is reported that Golden Nugget Casino is also currently suing Gemaco, the manufacturer of playing cards. The company has publicly admitted its product mistakes and said that this was just a very isolated incident.

On the other hand, the casino firmly denied the accusation of racial discrimination made by three Chinese people among the 14 gamblers, saying it was groundless because in order to attract Asian gamblers, the casino also set up a special Asian area and built a special Asian restaurant. However, the Chinese gambler who filed the discrimination claim said that he was detained and interrogated for several hours without reason, without water and food. During this period, his body was pressed against the wall and unable to move, and his personal rights were seriously violated.