Ohio’s casinos will start sending camera images of every customer to a new statewide database if a provision in the Senate’s budget becomes law. Casinos are filled with cameras; Horseshoe Casino Cincinnati has more than 1,000. This provision would let Ohio gather those cameras’ images and save them for five years. Sen. Bill Coley, R-Liberty Township and the sponsor of the amendment, said it doesn’t call for additional surveillance at a time when governmental information-gathering tactics are drawing national criticism. Law enforcement would be able to use the database of images to fight money laundering more effectively, he said. Money launderers use casinos to hide the source of illicitly acquired money. Sometimes stolen money gets sprayed with dye set to disperse during a bank robbery, so criminals need a covert way to exchange the money for clean bills. Sometimes drug traffickers need to deposit large sums of money without looking suspicious, so they try to claim the money came from gambling. “Criminals go in there with their ill-gotten gains from drug sales and robberies and change the money into chips,” Coley said. “They gamble a little bit and then go, ‘Oh, I had all these winnings today.’ It’s a really hard thing to detect.” Jennifer Kulczycki, spokeswoman for Rock Gaming, Horseshoe Casino Cincinnati’s parent company, said the casino uses cameras to ensure the integrity and security of its gaming environment. Casino executives couldn’t be reached over the weekend to comment on the budget amendment. Alleged illegal activities at gambling establishments have been a recent focus for the General Assembly, which last month passed a law banning Internet sweepstakes parlors because of allegations of illegal gambling. Opponents of the law have promised to challenge it in a voter referendum. Coley’s budget amendment would make it legal for the Casino Control Commission or the attorney general to set rules related to the cameras, but all gambling establishments would have to follow the rules once they’re ready, Coley said. Under the amendment, casinos, video lottery terminals and Internet sweepstakes parlors would all have to use cameras to capture the faces of every customer that redeems earnings for cash. The new law would send a message to criminals who try to use casinos to launder money, Coley said: “In Ohio, we’re watching. Go to another state. We don’t want you here.”
Posted on: Tue, 11 Jun 2013 13:34:18 +0000