Rash of Cheating and Stealing incidents at Vancouver, B.C. Casinos

Evidently, casinos in the beautiful Canadian province of British Columbia are having some compliance problems with cheating and other unlawful incidents. This is the second wave of such incidents that I can remember.

Parq Casino Vancouver

The first incident, of course, was another clumsy yet effective insider-dealer cheating scam that saw three dealers on card games at the Parq Casino passing off chips to their player agents, netting some $120,000. The dealers were fired and formally charged with crimes.

The second incident, again no surprise, was a case of money laundering at the River Rock Casino. No details were given except that the crimes date back to 2017.

A third incident was, however, a bit surprising. Apparently some former River Rock dealers have gone into business for themselves, but not the usual way by cheating in collusion against the house. These enterprising dealers decided to open up their own casino! Which, of course, is illegal. Their casino was duly raided.

Back at the Parq casino, a worker from Coquitlam's Hard Rock Casino was caught using phony chips to obtain cash. I don't know if he was arrested, but the Hard Rock Casino did fire him.

And, finally...and thankfully, the last two incidents reported, believe it or not, were the theft of a cigarette lighter and cigarettes by one Chances Casino employee from another, and the theft of two chocolate bars from a concession stand by a Penticton gaming employee.

My take: Well, if Vancouver Casinos can cut this rash of dishonest incidents to just stealing cigarettes and chocolate bars, that might be an acceptable result!