Compulsive gambler sues seven casinos

ATLANTIC CITY - She started out as an ambitious lawyer and TV commentator who got to know the staff in Atlantic City casinos and soon had limousines whisking her to the resort for the high-roller treatment.

But Arelia Margarita Taveras says her gambling began to spin out of control. She would go days at the tables without food or sleep, cleaning her teeth with disposable wipes so she didn't have to leave the table and sometimes passing out.

She says her losses totaled nearly $1 million.

Now she's chasing the longest of long shots: a $20 million racketeering lawsuit against six casinos in Atlantic City and one in Las Vegas, contending they had a duty to notice her gambling compulsion and cut her off.

Experts say her case will be difficult to prove, but it provides an unusually detailed window into the life of a problem gambler.

"It's like crack, only gambling is worse than crack because it's mental," said Taveras, 37, a native of Queens, N.Y., who lives in Minnesota. "It creeps up on you, the impulse. It's a sickness."

She lost her law practice, her apartment and her parents' home, and still owes the IRS $58,000. She said she even had considered swerving into oncoming traffic to kill herself.

Taveras admitted in interviews that she had dipped into escrow accounts she maintained for clients to pay for her gambling. She was disbarred in June, and faces criminal charges stemming from those actions, but is trying to work out restitution agreements to avoid prison.

Her lawsuit, in U.S. District Court in New Jersey, names Resorts Atlantic City, the Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino, the Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort, the Tropicana Casino Resort, the Showboat Casino Hotel, Bally's Atlantic City, and, in Las Vegas, the MGM Grand Hotel & Casino.

The casinos deny any wrongdoing, arguing in court papers that Taveras brought her problems on herself. The casinos either declined to comment for this article, or did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

Last month, a judge dismissed the Trump casinos, the Tropicana, the Showboat and Bally's from the lawsuit but allowed Taveras to refile the suit against them by April if she specifies in greater detail what she alleges they did wrong.

The casinos "knew I was going for days without eating or sleeping," Taveras said. "I would pass out at the tables. They had a duty of care to me. Nobody in their right mind would gamble for four or five straight days without sleeping."

Joe Corbo, president of the Casino Association of New Jersey, said casino workers underwent extensive training on how to spot problem gamblers and refer them to help, including a self-exclusion list the state maintains.

"This can be a delicate situation, and it comes down to an individual's personal responsibility," Corbo said. "We can only suggest that they receive assistance and provide information how they can obtain help, but it is up to them to commit to seek it."

Paul O'Gara, a lawyer specializing in Atlantic City gambling issues, said it would be difficult for Taveras to prove that the casinos had known she had a problem and ignored it.

"How are you supposed to know whether this was a woman who was just having a good time, or had money and was just lonely, as opposed to someone who couldn't control themselves?" he asked.

Arnie Wexler, a former head of the Council on Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey, estimates there are five million problem gamblers in the United States, with 15 million others at risk of becoming compulsive.

"Hers is not a rare case, believe me," said Wexler, who said he had had a gambling problem. "This is the most powerful addiction you can have without putting something into your body. You remember your first big win, and you think, 'Hey, I can do this again. I can get it all back.' "

Lawsuits like this are not uncommon, Wexler and others said. He said they rarely succeeded because courts - and society - seemed to apply different standards to compulsive gambling.

"We treat gambling differently in this country than we do alcoholism or drug abuse," he said. "We look at alcoholics and drug addicts as sick people. We look at compulsive gamblers as crooks."