Suncoast Casino in ID Spat with Winner

A row ensued this week at the Suncoast Casino over management’s demand for identity by a couple who won more than R85,000. Umhlanga businessman, Roshan Roopnarian and his partner Sharina Singh visited the casino on Wednesday and embarked on an eight hour gambling spree, sometimes wagering as much as R4,000 for a single hand. .

According to the pair, throughout their entire gaming session, they were not once asked for ID; however, when it came to cashing out their casino chips, it was a different story.

Click here to view the list of South African Casino Resorts.

At 3 am, Roopnarian requested to cash his chips but was refused by management who requested proof of identity before anything could be done. Roopnarian said that the casino insisted on seeing an identity document to see that he complied with the Financial Intelligence Center Act.

“They took our money throughout the night with no problem. Not one person asked for Fica documents when I was spending R4 000 on a single hand,” said a fuming Roopnarian.

While the pair said that they could have produced ID documents, they said no as a matter of principle.

“Imagine if you came from out of town on business and decided to go to the casino for fun, and happened to win,” said Singh. “Would you have to go all the way back to where you came from to get your documents before they could pay you out?”

The couple started off their visit to the Suncoast Casino with R5,000 in cash and withdrew another R24,000 during the course of the evening. Each time they won, they pout chips aside. At 3 am, they managed to increase their chips to R85,000 and decided to call it quits.

However, despite Singh producing her own ID, they were refused a payout because her partner would not produce his. They continued to gamble with the chips they won and within three hours had lost R31,000. This time around, they decided that they needed to do all they could to cash out their remaining R54,000, but were refused again. On Wednesday afternoon, Roopnarian decided to go in with his ID and had the chips cashed. However, they still believe that the casino should not have demanded ID if they allowed them to play without it beforehand.