Taking A Gamble With These Gamblers

I work in a casino. It’s my first day on the floor after a week of testing on how to comply with gambling and alcohol laws, so it’s not out of my mind that a test might appear. Sure enough, along comes someone who is already visibly oozing anguish. I barely get out “hello” before she starts telling me about every itemized red flag I just went through in training — losing her marriage, her mortgage, she feels out of control when gambling, the works.

I’m picking up the situation, and I have figured out this is probably a secret shopper of sorts, and so I make sure to take her name to my supervisor. My supervisor happens to be a personal friend, so I make a comment on my approach.

Me: “I’m guessing you’ve done this before, right?”

Supervisor: “This is actually the first report I’ve ever filed. I have no idea what I’m doing.” *Laughs*

Me: “Wait, what?”

Supervisor: “Is something wrong?”

Me: “I thought this was a plant. I mean, look at the paper; we only left one box unchecked!”

Supervisor: “I guess I wouldn’t put it past ’em. Don’t worry. I’ll make sure it gets filed.”

Fast forward a month, and I heard a very familiar name over the intercom system calling for the exact same person to visit the customer service desk. Fast forward another month, and it happened again. I started to wonder whether they just recycled the same fake name or something, and then the whole process happened again — but now with a different person.

Maybe leaving treating gambling addiction in the hands of the people making money off of gambling addicts is a bit of a conflict of interest.