Well, the owner/boss thought his casino was in good hands during his absence on a pleasure trip. According to this article, he was not quite in the good hands he'd thought he was!
According to the Irish Sun, two casino managers, Tayab Kourtische and Jagjeet Singh, got busy cheating the Dublin Casino's electronic roulette and "fruit" machines out of 18,000 euros. They were seen on CCTV setting up the machines for the kill. They did, however, avoid jail time.
This included tricking the roulette table by removing the glass cover and placing a ball on a number before playing the machine.
This fooled it into thinking the ball already inserted was a win and treated it as a win.
Garda Brian McCormack told prosecutor Antonia Boyle the method the men used to steal from the fruit machine involved a third person who is not yet before the court.
This person loaded a large number of €50 notes into the machine before pressing a “pay out” button.
This then generated a ticket allowing the person to cash it in to redeem the money they had just put into the machines.
CCTV FOOTAGE
Kourtishe is then captured on CCTV footage, unlocking the machine, using a key he had stolen from the office and withdrawing all the cash the third person had just put into the machine.
Singh then came along and cleared all the transactions on the machine, which effectively wiped the statistics and removed all records of the input of the €50 notes into it.
Kourtishe and Singh, both of Tallaght, Dublin, pleaded guilty at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court to sample charges of theft from Expo Casino in The Square, Tallaght, in September 2017.
Neither man has previous convictions and both had money in court to make full recompense.
Gda McCormack said that Kourtishe had stolen €8,895 from the fruit machines and by manipulating the roulette table, while Singh stole a total of €8,988 from the fruit machines.
Judge Pauline Codd noted that Singh was manager of the casino and stole the cash while the owner of the casino was on a month’s leave.
'BREACH OF TRUST'
She accepted that he has made full restitution and had a gambling addiction at the time but noted that his behaviour represented a “breach of trust”.
Judge Codd accepted from various testimonials before the court that the offences were “out of character” for Singh and that he has since “sought to address his gambling addiction”.
Judge Codd said that Kourtishe had taken keys from the office which enabled him to steal from the fruit machine.
She said he was “culpable in terms of his breach of trust” but again acknowledged that he has made full recompense for the theft.
Both men were sentenced to two and half years in prison which were suspended in full on strict conditions.
Gda McComack said the owner of the casino immediately identified both Kourtishe and Singh as suspects through CCTV footage, once the thefts were discovered.
IMMEDIATE ADMISSIONS
Both men made immediate admissions when their boss questioned them about it and signed a note to say they had stolen the cash.
They also returned some of the cash they had stolen.
Gda McCormack acknowledged that both men had provided him with bank drafts to cover the full amount of money they had stolen but he has had difficulty in contacting the owner of the casino as he has since moved to Spain.
There was also no victim impact statement prepared for the case.
Kieran Kelly BL, defending Kourtishe, asked the court to take into account his client’s pleas of guilty and co-operation with the garda investigation.
He said his client, who is originally from Algeria, felt a compulsion to look after his mother who was elderly and ill, which was what motivated him to steal the cash.
“He knows now that he cannot give to others what he does not legitimately have himself,” Mr Kelly said.
“He was well-motivated, if misguided, in his intentions and hopes to go back to the person he always was,” counsel submitted.
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