Casino Plan in Illinois to ID Younger Gamblers
As of Aug. 15, the East Peoria-based Par-A-Dice and Illinois' other eight casinos will start carding every customer who appears to be age 30 or younger.
The Illinois Gaming Board, which regulates the casino industry, said the idea is to ensure that problem gamblers who have enrolled in the casinos' "self-exclusion program" do not enter the gambling establishments. People who sign up for the voluntary program, which started in 2002, agree to ban themselves from Illinois casinos.
Rob Stillwell, spokesman for Boyd Gaming Inc. of Las Vegas, which owns the Par-A-Dice, said Friday that he does not know details of the new plan to check younger customers for ID, but the Par-A-Dice will "comply 100 percent."
In a news release, Gaming Board Chairman Aaron Jaffe said Thursday that the panel "is showing its commitment to the issue of problem gambling."
"At some point in the future, this board may require that the identification of other age groups be checked as well," Jaffe said. "The self-exclusion program has grown over the years and will continue to evolve."
The Gaming Board has been looking for ways to strengthen the self-exclusion program, said spokesman Gene O'Shea.
Gaming Board staff worked with the casino industry to come up with the plan to check identification for all casino customers ages 30 or younger, O'Shea said. The casinos will have some discretion in deciding which customers appear to be in that age range, he said.
Information from a customer's driver's license or other government-issued identification will be scanned and compared electronically with the Gaming Board's database of individuals who enrolled in the self-exclusion program.
If a customer's name turns up in the database, he or she will be denied entry to the casino, O'Shea said.
The casino industry also has agreed to seek trespassing charges against anyone who violates the self-exclusion program.
Casinos will keep a record of the scanned driver's licenses that belong to people who aren't in the self-exclusion program, but that information may not be used for marketing purposes, O'Shea said.
The voluntary self-exclusion program started in July 2002. So far, more than 3,600 individuals have enrolled.
Anyone who signs up for the program cannot cash checks, get credit or use credit cards for cash advances at Illinois casinos. If someone in the self-exclusion program slips into a casino despite the ban, he or she must agree to donate any gambling winnings to an organization that helps problem gamblers.
By signing up, individuals agree to ban themselves permanently from Illinois casinos. But a person may seek to remove himself or herself from the banned list after five years.
Enrollment sites for Illinois' self-exclusion program can be found at about two dozen locations. Two are in Iowa, and the rest are in Illinois.
In central Illinois, enrollment sites have been established at the Illinois Institute for Addiction Recovery in Proctor Hospital in Peoria, and the Illinois Institute for Addiction Recovery in BroMenn Regional Medical Center in Normal. The phone numbers are 800-522-3784 for the Peoria location and 309-888-0993 for the Normal location.
June 25, 2006
Posted By Terry Goodwin
Staff Editor, CasinoGamblingWeb.com
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