Updates to our Terms of Use

We are updating our Terms of Use. Please carefully review the updated Terms before proceeding to our website.

Monday, March 18, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

‘Problem Gambler’ Deals Himself A Lifetime Ban

TRENTON, N.J. (CN) - A self-professed "problem gambler" is regretting how he played his last hand. A New Jersey appeals court rejected S.D.'s bid to remove him from the New Jersey Casino Control Commission's lifetime self-exclusion list, which the plaintiff claims to have placed himself on to restrict his Atlantic City gaming in order to gamble in Las Vegas.

When he found out that the lifetime exclusion ban applied to affiliated casinos in other states, including Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, he asked the Division of Gaming Enforcement to rescind or downgrade the ban to a one-year ban. He claimed he never would have placed himself on the lifetime ban had he known it would bar him from gambling in other states.

He also claimed that the irrevocable decision violates his right to enter a Vegas casino "without fear of apprehension and exclusion, when he has done absolutely nothing wrong."

But the appeals court said he has no fundamental right to gamble, and his decision to be on the list was entirely voluntary. The impact of his decision on out-of-state gambling is an "indirect collateral consequence," the court ruled - one that he should take up with the individual casinos that honored the lifetime ban.

Categories / Uncategorized

Subscribe to Closing Arguments

Sign up for new weekly newsletter Closing Arguments to get the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and hot cases and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world.

Loading...