They’re too young to gamble but old enough to teach a lesson or learn one

There's a jackass here in town.

OK, probably more than one.

But this one lost $600 playing craps at The Venetian and lied to get his money back. Because I don't know his name, I'll call him Mr. J.

Mr. J decided to do a little gambling May 6 at The Venetian. He played craps for hours at five different tables and lost $600.

Then he went to management and announced he was an underage gambler and wanted his money back. (In the old days, he might have been tossed outside on his jackassy butt, but today's casinos aren't that rough.)

I'm told Mr. J is 6-foot-4, about 230 pounds, black and looks about 30, although his age is actually 20.

Mr. J was creative in his lie. He said he was a UNLV student and was doing this for a class project at the UNLV College of Hotel Administration.

Venetian officials called Las Vegas police; they didn't respond. The Venetian gave the jerk his money back, and then disciplined people who worked the five craps tables. (I've heard conflicting numbers, that it was 11 casino workers and that it was 25. The Venetian would not say.) They were disciplined for failing to ask him to prove he was 21, the legal age to gamble. Their stated policy is to ask anyone who looks under 30 for ID.

Did I mention The Venetian paid a $10,000 fine after the resort self-reported another underage gambler? A 19-year-old drank and gambled at the casino in 2004 for more than an hour. A cashier outed him when he tried to cash in his chips.

Maybe they wanted to save themselves another $10,000 fine, but what The Venetian didn't do this time was report the latest incident to the Gaming Control Board. After all, it cost them 10 grand the last time they were so forthcoming.

If The Venetian felt it was serious enough to call police, shouldn't it have been serious enough to call the control board?

When the story of the UNLV class project came my way, I called Gaming Control Board member Randall Sayre, a guy who takes underage gambling seriously. Sayre wasn't happy to be hearing of this incident from a columnist nine days after it happened, rather than from The Venetian. He jumped on it, quickly discovering it wasn't a UNLV project.

Sayre asked the Gaming Enforcement Division to launch an inquiry into how it was all handled, including whether action might be taken against Mr. J.

One problem for The Venetian: What if the lie had been true? Didn't The Venetian have an obligation to drop a dime to the control board in case there were students testing hotels in Las Vegas? Sayre said Friday he doesn't yet have enough information to determine whether any action should be taken against The Venetian.

I'm sorry for the casino workers who were disciplined because it's obvious Mr. J didn't look underage. But it seems The Venetian wanted to send a message to its employees, and nothing sends a message like discipline that hits you in the pocketbook. Unofficially, I've been told they received one-day suspensions. Venetian spokesman Ron Reese said he couldn't get into the specifics of the case, but that the company was cooperating with the control board.

"On any given week, I have four or five situations involving underage gamblers coming across my desk," Sayre said. Few reach the level of fines. A search by Nevada Gaming Commission Executive Secretary Marilyn Epling showed that since 1998, eight properties were fined because of underage gambling. The biggest fine was $350,000 against the Las Vegas Hilton, where kids waiting in line for the Star Trek attraction were hanging in the casino.

If gaming regulators didn't take a hard-nosed approach with the casinos, underage gamblers would flood the casinos.

The challenge is so many people don't look their age.

One notorious example of underage gambling is Kirk Erickson, the 19-year-old from Arkansas who won a $1 million jackpot at Caesars Palace in 1987. He sued when the resort refused to pay him because he was underage. Erickson lost, and a million dollars slipped through his fingers.

That's real punishment for an underage gambler.

Jane Ann Morrison's column appears Monday, Thursday and Saturday. E-mail her at Jane@reviewjournal.com or call 383-0275.