Bendigo and Adelaide Bank Cease Court Action Against Crown Casino

With no favourable results in prospect, Bendigo and Adelaide Bank walked away from court and Crown Casino.

For more than six years, Bendigo and Adelaide Bank has been fighting to get back a massive AUD 3.5 million from Crown Casino. According to gambling news, the unlucky bank had an employee, Kate Jamieson, who stole the money, then went and gambled it away at the casino. The suspicion was that Crown Casino knew the money had to be stolen, because Kate Jamieson could not possibly afford to spend as much as she did. In her testimony, Jamieson said the following to the Daily Telegraph , “I was totally seduced by VIP rewards (like free meals, limousine rides) because this was a side of life I have never seen before.”

• Crown Casino won lawsuit

• Bendigo and Adelaide Bank gave up
• AUD 3.5 million stolen money gambled away

Michael McNamara, an employee of the Law Institute of Victoria, asserted that the casinos would be pushed to reveal all the information they knew of the former bank loans officer. General information of Kate Jamieson include that she lived in the northern suburbs and lived off her income. McNamara stated, “There are only several suburbs in Melbourne where houses are worth AUD 3.5 million, let alone people who have AUD 3.5 million in cash to gamble.” The case seemed obvious. The hope was that if the bank succeeded on recovering the stolen money, it could eventually serve as a basis to a class action suit.

A truly big victory for Crown Casino

The bank’s statement of claim was changed in late 2014 from AUD 1,508,546 to AUD 3,060,077, stating that the ex-employee “stole or embezzled an amount of at least AUD 3,221,134 between July 2001 and May 2004.” The report also showed that almost 95% of the money taken from the bank landed in Crown Casino. Accrdoing to the Daily Telegraph, Crown made an AUD 1.5 million profit off Kate Jamieson’s gambling spree. What would have happened if she used mobile casino gambling sties? Crown wouldn’t be in trouble, that’s for sure. It is, however, a mystery why the bank suddenly stopped pursuing the luxury casino after so many years of battle.

The bank claimed that the money stolen by Jamieson was gambled away “principally (if not exclusively) on poker machines.” Bendigo and Adelaide Bank expressed a great amount of disapproval about Crown Casino, “(The casino) wilfully shut its eyes to the obvious fact that Jamieson had stolen all or most of the moneys wagered or bet by her at the casino.” They added, “(the casino) wilfully and recklessly failed to make such inquiries as an honest and reasonable person would make as to the source of the funds wagered or bet by Jamieson at the casino.” It is estimated that on each of her visits, she lost around AUD 20,000.

Not only did the casino turn a blind eye, it also gave her incentives

According to online gambling news in the US, Jamieson spent so much time in Crown Casino that she was made a Crown Casino VIP Slots Member. The banks statement said that it must have been obvious to the casino operator that Jamieson was a “person of ordinary circumstances and means” and doesn’t understand why he has not posed any questions to determine where the money might have come from. In the Gambling Regulation Act of 2003, it is declared that if money is stolen from someone and paid to another person because of a wager or bet, the person from whom is was stolen from can retrieve it from the person to whom the amount was paid.

The gambling regulator asserted that he would expect Crown Melbourne to inspect its analysis systems and make changes to it so that in the future, such fraudulent activities can be ruled out. It was predicted that Crown would have argued that it was the bank which has not noticed the amount of money disappearing. After the sentencing of Jamieson, the judge on the case refuted the fact that something like this could go unnoticed for so long. In the end, the bank stood down on its claims, even though their last one was made not even a year ago, in October 2014. Crown agreed to pay all of Bendigo and Adelaide Bank’s legal fees.