Casino and Rolling Credit

Hi Mr Tan

The following is a short description of how the casinos are using "rolling" credit to encourage gamblers to gamble more. Please post it up if you think it is useful to share with others so that they do not fall into the trap of problem gambling.

CRA implemented rules to try and reduce the incidence of problem gambling.

Unfortunately, these restrictions have been cleverly bypassed.  The main way of doing this is via rolling credit. This is offered to gamblers which the casino has identified as big gamblers based on their gambling patterns recorded in their card.

These big gamblers are advised to make a deposit (e.g. $50,000). After making a deposit, they are given a rolling “commission” based on the amount they play. This commission ranges from 0.5% to 1.0% of the gambled amount.

To earn what seems like “free money”, many big gamblers are enticed to make the deposit. In doing so, they are consistently tempted to gamble with more money than they had originally planned to gamble by drawing down on the deposit.

When the deposit is exhausted, the casino will usually offer to extend credit to allow the gambler to continue gambling. The amount extended will depend on the credit check done by the casino when the initial deposit is made.

Hence beyond operating a casino, the casino is also involved a lucrative money lending business. At this point in time, it is unknown what are the charges the casinos are levying for providing this credit. It is however likely that this makes up a significant portion of the record profits that have recently been reported.

Aurvandil