Las Vegas’s “Dirty Little Secret”

I find it strange, when Governor Gibbon is visiting prisons to highlight the severe overcrowding and prison officials are forced to grant “early releases” to violent felons due to lack space; that Nevada’s legislators and politicians, continue to look the other way while casino’s violate their customers constitutional rights by jailing them for civil gambling debts and prosecuting them in the criminal courts, all at taxpayer’s expense. The casinos have very effectively turned the Clark County District Attorneys office into their own “private collection agency” and the Clark County Detention Center into a modern day “debtor’s prison.” A practice abolished by our legislators decades ago because it grid locked our criminal courts, overcrowded jails and violated our civil rights.
If you are offered credit in a Las Vegas Casino you sign a “marker” for the amount of money or chips you receive. The casino puts your bank account number on the marker, making it the same as a personal check under Nevada statute 205.130. When the casino presents the marker at your bank for payment and you have insufficient funds to cover it; you have committed a crime! If it is over $250.00 you have committed a felony, punishable by one to four years imprisonment, for each marker you sign! Even if you are not aware you have committed a crime, because somehow the “powerful Nevada Casino Lobby” has made one, only in Nevada, you are legally guilty of passing bad checks!
Unfortunately, if you have lost all your money and cannot pay, a felony warrant for your arrest can be issued. Once in custody, you are extradited to Las Vegas’ Clark County Detention Center. Once you are there, the District Attorneys office will threaten you with prison time until you sign a “restitution agreement “. If you sign, you are released on probation, with a monthly payment plan and a felony conviction hanging over your head until you have paid in full. If you miss a payment, you are subject to re-arrest and extradition again. The casinos lobbied to change Nevada Law to prosecute civil debt criminally for good reason. First, the taxpayers pick up the tab for everything (including prosecution) until the casino is paid in full. Second, you cannot include criminal restitution in a bankruptcy proceeding so it follows you the rest of your life or until the debt is paid.
If you refuse to sign, because you want to fight this injustice, you have to sit in jail until your trial; a process that can take up to six months or more. You cannot bail out because it is a “cash only” bail for a debt amount you are unable to pay to begin with. Once your taxpayer funded, public defender makes you realize that the casinos have perverted Nevada law to “tip the scales of justice”, you reluctantly sign rather than go to trial and face prison time!
One man is now facing trial in Clark County District Court charged with 32 felonies and facing 204 years in prison for signing sixteen (16) “credit markers” in a Las Vegas casino, over two weekends! At the time he took the credit, he told the casino he was out of money and could only pay with a future real estate transaction. He subsequently lost the property and couldn’t pay them.
When you consider the casino has no real “out of pocket” loss (you generally lose the chips back to them) and all their customer did was accept their friendly offer of credit; to be put in jail for it seems particularly egregious. When a business offers credit, it is their responsibility to determine their customer’s credit worthiness or ability to repay the debt. If they cannot pay, like any other business, they have to take them to civil court, get a judgment and attach their assets to collect these types of debt. The costly civil process keeps businesses from offering credit foolishly; like to people with gambling problems. The casino should have to collect their debt, like every other business, at their own expense not ours!
Since the Clark County District Attorney created the “bad check unit” to handle these types of crimes; it makes you wonder about the cost to the taxpayer. Clark County Detention Center holds approximately 4000 prisoners, if conservatively 2% are being held for these so called “credit crimes” that would cost taxpayers about $3,000,000.00 annually! That does not include the cost of prosecution (i.e. Public defenders, judges, district attorneys, bailiffs, court reporters, juries, clerks, assistants, witnesses, administrative costs, etc.) which may be more than the incarceration costs! These are sizable costs that the casinos, like every other business, should bear, themselves, in the civil courts!
If we allow the casinos to continue to do this, we head down a “slippery slope”. Soon other businesses will want the same unfair and, most importantly, unconstitutional advantage. Next, Wells Fargo will put you in jail for missing a car payment; or VISA will threaten you with prison time if you miss a credit card payment for the lawnmower you purchased at Home Depot!
Finally, Las Vegas Casinos are taxed at the lowest rate for casinos in the country, which makes it particularly egregious that they’re using the Clark County Criminal Justice System like their own personal “slot machine”! When do we stop this injustice? When the overcrowding it helps to create forces corrections officials to grant an “early release” to a felon who takes the life of an innocent taxpaying citizen? Good citizens of Nevada, it’s time to put an end to this now!