Two Canadians on holiday in the Dominican Republic say they fell victim to a scam inside the casino the Hotel Riu Bambu near Punta Cana.
According to CBC News, Jay Lush and Steve Bungay of Holyrood, N.L. say they were greeted by a hostess who gave them $25 in free chips and led them to an eight-ball roulette table. Bungay began to play, and though he didn’t understand the game, within minutes he was urged to bet a $1,200 hand.
“He was one point away, they told him, from winning $100,000 and if he kept rolling he was guaranteed to win,” Lush said. “At that moment we realized something wasn’t right. We kind of panicked and said stop. Immediately they brought Steve over to the cashier and demanded the payment.”
Casino staff refused to return Bungay’s driver’s license, then guards escorted the pair to an ATM and forced them to withdraw cash in $200 increments until the credit cards “shut down,” Lush said.
Speaking to a Canadian news program, he continued, “You feel safe and you feel secure, and then that’s ripped away from you and you’re 3,000 miles from home in a country, in a third-world country, where you don’t speak the language.”
When casino staff ordered them to have the money transferred by wire, they complied.
“I just kept saying to Steve, ‘Let’s just go to the room, I don’t want to talk about this.’ I felt like we got assaulted. I was embarrassed. I was horrified. I felt so stupid that we fell for something like this.”
The news outlet reported that “dozens” of similar scams have taken place at the casino, which is run by a private company unrelated to the Riu Bambi Hotel. The men reported the incident to local police.
“I’ve heard horror stories happening to other people and I would be the same as anyone else, and say, ‘Well, maybe they were drunk,’ or ‘Did they just lose their money and now they’re sore losers?’ I understand that completely and I would be that skeptic myself. But it happened to us. And it happened so quickly.”
