Indiana court rules for casinos in compulsive gambling, card counting cases

Indiana-Court-Rules-CasinosIndiana’s state Supreme Court has issued two rulings in cases involving disputes between gamblers and casinos, and the casinos came up trumps in both. In the first case, involving a Kentucky woman who sued to get back the $125K she dropped at the Caesars Indiana (now the Horseshoe Southern Indiana) riverboat casino in 2007, the court ruled 4-1 in favor of the casino, stating that problem gamblers bear the responsibility for policing their own behavior, and if they failed to take advantage of the casino’s self-exclusion programs, the casinos could not be faulted.

In the second case, a card-counting blackjack player was fighting a ban imposed in 2006 by the Grand Victoria Casino and Resort at Rising Sun. The 3-1 ruling (with one justice abstaining) stated that so long as they do not violate applicable civil rights laws, businesses have a common-law right to exclude customers.