CHAMBERSBURG – See what you think about this one. A New Jersey woman put herself on the Pennsylvania lifetime self-exclusion list for gambling.
The PA Gaming Control Board has a voluntary self-exclusion program (with a lifetime option) and an involuntary exclusion list for offenders.
This woman put herself on the program in 2019.
She’s now 69 years old and back in Pennsylvania.
She went to Hollywood Casino and hit the jackpot.
Because she’s on the list, though, she’s not going to receive any of the winnings.
Michele Jansen of News Talk 103.7FM thinks it’s a good idea.
She said, “The whole purpose of that is to help and encourage people who are addicted to gambling or hurting their lives. You undercut it when you do a story like this, and if she would get those winnings, because, oh well, then yeah, I should go, because look what can happen to me.”
Pat Ryan of News Talk 103.7FM predicted, “Listen, she’s going to get this money one way or the other.”
Attorney Clint Barkdoll said, “No, unfortunately, I think she’s out of luck, because that law is when you self impose that ban, that applies to these kind of scenarios, going in and winning a jackpot, and of course that’s what brought her on the radar, but what if she goes to see a lawyer? She’s not going to get the jackpot, and she says, okay, if you’re going to take my jackpot, I actually was secretly coming into your casino for weeks, and I lost $25,000. You owe that back to me, because I never should have been allowed in there to gamble in the first place. What’s the casino going to say about that scenario?”
Jansen said, “They better hope that the law was applied very effectively to her. She got in, though. You’re right.”
Ryan said, “It doesn’t look like a good visual for Hollywood Casino.”
Barkdoll wondered, “Is this exposing a loophole in this program? Inasmuch, if you self-ban yourself, I would imagine that your image, everything about you, is in some kind of a facial recognition system that when you walk into the casino you’re immediately flagged. How is it that she was able to so easily come and go into the casino when she was banned?”