Young man from Great Britain gambled away several millions in Swiss Casino

In just two nights a 31-year old man from Great Britain gambled away several million in Swiss Francs. This happened last year over two nights at the casino in Zürich. Now the young man wants to proceed against the casino, because those responsible there did not stop him from playing, despite his explicit request. The Swiss Commission of Casinos, which is responsible to oversee the casino in Switzerland, does not hold itself responsible. The question is if the man was driven by a gaming illusion and could one have been banned from gambling earlier on. Recently the calls for betting limits and loss limit in Online Casinos are always getting louder.

As the Neue Zürcher Newspaper (NZZ) reported on Sunday, a 31 year old British visited the Casino Zürich on two different nights in January and August. On his first visit the unlucky fellow lost over a million Francs in a few hours. The Casino let this wealthy man go home for cash four times on this day, since he stashed there several hundred thousand Francs in cash. By the end of the day the whole amount of money had been gambled and lost. The Casino visitor admitted to having drunk several glasses of wine on that evening and that he kept on gambling away in a kind of “panic attack.”

Second casino night ends up even more disastrous

After his first visit to the Casino Zürich was not successful, the young man tried his luck once again in August 2019. After he had also gambled 300,000 Francs on this day, he asked his Client Relationship Manager not to let him gamble on his own. However he was allowed to keep on gambling and by the end of the night he had lost chips worth 1,5 million Francs. After the unsuccessful British walked away with 2,5 Million Francs less in his pocket, one questions here, whether the casino should have banned him from gambling before it came to this.

The Swiss Commission of Casinos was asked to examine the case, but till now no misconduct from the part of the casino could be disclosed. It was only after the British had gambled his money on the mentioned day that the Casino Zürich took action and blocked him since he is a “vulnerable person”. Both parties were encouraged to take the case to the civil court. In view of the fact, that the player suffered millions in losses and had played excessively on two days, it is obvious that in this case, the mechanisms which should be in place to protect the players did not work.

Conclusion

Whether at an actual casino or at a virtual online casino: In our opinion it should be top priority that the players are protected and that problematic gaming behaviour is tackled as early as possible. It is only then that each guest can enjoy the game and is not in danger of losing everything in an uncontrolled “game intoxication“. From the example of the 31-year old British one can realise, how dangerous it can be to gamble all that money in a panicky reaction.

Image source: Pixabay (https://pixabay.com/de/photos/mann-menschen-dunkel-schatten-2617866/)