Wild Rose Casinos in Clinton and Jefferson, Iowa each have been fined $5,000 in penalties for violating rules regarding self-banning.
Last September, the Wild Rose in Clinton sent out a mailing to an individual who had signed up for the self-banning list the previous February. General Manager Steve Nauman apologized to the Iowa Racing and Gaming Commission. He said, “We’ve spent countless hours to go through this program. We have made some changes, some safeguards. This happened when our marketing coordinator failed to pull a new list. Now the marketing coordinator cannot send out emails until it is proven that she has pulled the new list and our marketing manager needs to sign off on it.”
At the Wild Rose in Jefferson, an individual who had signed a self-ban at another casino was given a player’s card. General Manager Travis Dvorak also apologized to the IRGC and said the casino has taken steps to correct the problem including reviewing procedures and retraining all employees about the importance of checking identification. Dvorak added, “We will be doing a monthly audit of the state ban list to our internal control system. We’ve also taken additional steps for training.”
IRGC Administrator Brian Ohorilko said due to several recent violations, the rules governing self-banning are being reviewed. He said the commission staff created a task force to evaluate all the procedures used to prevent people on the list from receiving marketing materials. In addition, he said, IRGC staff met with the casino operators “to see what’s working well and maybe what’s not working so well. At the end of the day the goal is to create a best practices document that can be shared with all of the licensees.”
Casinos are fined $5,000-$20,000 for violating self-ban rules, depending on the number of violations it has within a calendar year.
