Aruba: Supervision on gambling shockingly bad … The Law Dictates Residents are allowed only 8 Casino Visits a Month

What would have happened if Aruba properly supervised their own gambling laws as to the frequency of visits allowed by its residents on May 30, 2005?

If Aruba had only upheld their own laws regarding the frequency of allowed casino visits by residents, maybe Natalee Holloway would never have disappeared in Aruba. According to a recent Amigoe article, the supervision of gambling in Aruba is “shockingly bad”. That would also include an Aruban law that dictates that an Aruban resident can only visit a casino eight times a month. Dating back to the numerous stories of Joran Van der Sloot’s frequency of casinos, the following law becomes a bit questionable.

The law dictates that residents are allowed to visit a casino only eight times a month.  If and when they exceed this number of visits, the Internal Department of the government will sent them a letter at home with the warning that the maximum standard for casino-visits has been reached.  If this warning gets ignored, the resident is banned from casino-visits for one year.

The Department of Casino-system has 92 casino inspectors and 8 clerks, together 100 persons that ought to conduct the checking at the entrance of each casino.  However it is known that local visitors are almost never checked.

Joran Van der sloot was a resident of Aruba at the time he was in the Excelsior casino where he met the Mountain Brook. AL teens and Natalee Holloway for the first time. Let us remember there is a difference between the term resident and citizen of Aruba.

Surely eight visits a month for Joran was a matter of days when one considers each visit to a casino as counting as one. Especially when Natalee Holloway went missing on May 30, 2005.  Joran Van der Sloot made no issue of the fact that he frequented casinos on a regular basis. Of course the fact that he was under age to boot is just a mere technicality.

The question still remains why hasn’t anyone been held accountable for Natalee Holloway’s disappearance and why has neither the casinos nor Carlos N’ Charlies been held accountable either for breaking under age gambling and drinking laws?

Amigoe, October 19, 2007: Supervision on gambling shockingly bad

ORANJESTAD – In Aruba, there is hardly any supervision on the local population’s gambling.  Even though the law permits supervision, it appears that in practice, hardly anything is being checked.  The Social Economic Council (SER) came to that conclusion after they did an inquiry analysis on gambling on the island.

The Council listed the gambling possibilities in Aruba and they appeared innumerable.  There are currently 11 legal casinos, where people can go gambling seven days a week.  Several casinos organize daily bingo games in the amusement arcade, in the midst of slot machines.  “Many bingo players try their luck on the slot machines during intermission and after the bingo game is over”, writes the SER.

In addition to the 11 legal casinos, there are also illegal ones.  Considering the illegal character of these activities, other information on them is difficult to get. 

And then there is the phenomenon e-gaming or casino-on-line.  How much of this is being practiced in Aruba, we don’t know, but because it is being promoted in the local newspapers, we establish that e-gaming is also popular among the Aruban population. 

There is also cock-fighting, which is indeed illegal.  But it is an open secret that this is taking place on a regular basis.  The Veterinary Service indicated being concerned about the relatively new phenomenon of dog fights.

There are also gambling on domino- and pool competitions.  People also love to gamble on soccer tournaments and boxing.   There are of course the lotteries: Lotto pa Deporte, the National Lottery, the legal lotteries, and the illegal ones; in short, sufficient possibilities to gamble in Aruba.

SUPERVISION

The law dictates that residents are allowed to visit a casino only eight times a month.  If and when they exceed this number of visits, the Internal Department of the government will sent them a letter at home with the warning that the maximum standard for casino-visits has been reached.  If this warning gets ignored, the resident is banned from casino-visits for one year.  When this year has expired, the person has to submit a request to remove the casino ban.

From a study in 1982, it turned out that this supervision has never worked.  ‘In practice, this letter is dead”, said SER in her report.

The Department of Casino-system has 92 casino inspectors and 8 clerks, together 100 persons that ought to conduct the checking at the entrance of each casino.  However it is known that local visitors are almost never checked.  “The Casino-system department indicated that it is impossible to check the people that are going to play bingo, so they don’t.  But they almost never check either when there is no bingo game.”   

In order to protect residents it is also determined that “a resident of Aruba is not allowed to gamble more than 200 dollars each time and a non-resident, 1000 dollars”.  This ought to be supervised in the casino.  SER doesn’t mention in her report whether this is also taking place.  Probably, because there is no information on this, so it cannot be verified.

TECHNIQUE

SER also noticed a lack of supervision on the technical aspects of the slot machines.  A draft national ordinance was presented to parliament in 2004-2005, requiring more attention for the protection of Aruba’s good reputation against slot machines that pay too little.  The Technical Inspection Service (DTI) was supposed to be appointed as the controlling instance for this.  Supposedly this department has experience with this matter.

Inquiry with DTI revealed though that DTI has no experience at all with this matter.  They have proposed a bill in the past to make these inspections legal, and so set up and implement a system.  Parliament has never considered this bill.  Also the payment percentages of the slot machines in the casinos are never checked.  Casinos indicated that all the slot machines imported from the United States are programmed and approved by the Gaming Licence International in the United States.  The Casino-system department is responsible for further checking, when necessary.  Inquiry with this department learns that DTI does the checking and DTI indicated on her turn that they do not exercise controls.  With this, the supervision on casinos fails on all fronts.