Asian man was not barred from Dublin casino on racial grounds

An Asian man, who was barred from a Dublin amusement arcade and casino, after winning €6,000 on roulette, has failed in his claim that he was racially discriminated against by its staff.

The Workplace Relations Commission has ruled that there is no substance to the complaint and concluded the claimant had been banned because he “no longer relied on chance to win bets”. The claimant, from Bangladesh, said he suffered racial discrimination when refused entry to the casino in December 2016. He had frequented it for 12 years.

He also alleged he suffered unwanted racial verbal abuse as he was being escorted off the casino premises a few days earlier.

The man said he had won €6,000, with a €1,500 stake, at the casino on December 29, 2016, in the company of his cousin and a friend.

The claimant said the casino duty manager called them “fucking Asians” and “black people” and accused them of “robbing people” and informed him not to return.

The man said he and his friend were allowed on the premises the following day, but were informed they were barred when they turned up on New Year’s Eve, 2016. He said he was offered no explanation, but that he was barred for two weeks.

The man said he was also refused entry to the casino on January 18, 2017, and was informed they were permanently barred when they arrived back the following month.

In evidence, the duty manager admitted being “forceful” in asking the three men to leave the casino, after the man had won €6,000, but denied using any racist terms. He said there had never been any problem with the complainant in the five years he had seen him in the casino.

However, he said the three men had won unusually large amounts, involving sums of up to €5,000 and totalling €20,000, in the space of a few weeks around December 2016. He felt they knew something about how the roulette machine was working.

He said he had formed the view that the claimant and his friend, who had a degree in computers, were using the latter’s skill to win on roulette and that “they knew more than we do about the machine”. The casino’s technical manager said the men were barred after he concluded they had replaced chance with skill and were “beating the house”.

The WRC said it did not accept the claimant’s evidence that he was racially abused by the duty manager, as he had been treated with respect over the previous 12 years. WRC adjudicator, Catherine Byrne, said the claimant’s decision to return to the casino the following day was not consistent with someone who felt embarrassed and distressed.

Ms Byrne said an Irish person using their skills to achieve big wins in the casino would also have been barred. In finding the claimant’s evidence of racial abuse “not credible”, she noted the majority of the casino’s customers were non-Irish and the parties had been respectful to each other during the WRC hearing.