Teen’s jackpot proves costly for AC Hilton

John Curran

Thursday, Aug. 5, 1999 | 11:55 a.m.

ATLANTIC CITY -- A teenaged gambler's good fortune ended up spelling bad luck for a casino, which was fined $10,000 Wednesday for letting her play in the first place.

Dolores Banyai, 19, of New York, was two years shy of the legal minimum for gambling in a New Jersey casino when she hit a $220,200 jackpot on a 25-cent Wheel of Fortune slot machine in December 1997.

After hitting the jackpot at the Atlantic City Hilton, she was asked by a slot attendant for identification. She said it was in her room and went to retrieve it. But she knew she was too young to collect the money, so she summoned her boyfriend, David Baum, 21, of New York, who identified himself as the winner.

Casino officials didn't catch the ruse because there was a shift change between the time Banyai hit the jackpot and the time Baum came forward. So the casino paid Baum the first of the annual payments on the prize, which was $11,000, according to Hilton attorney Bernard DeLury.

But the casino later realized the slip-up and contacted the state Division of Gaming Enforcement, which filed criminal charges against Banyai and Baum.

Banyai pleaded guilty to underage gambling, the equivalent of a disorderly persons offense, and was fined $150 and ordered to pay $157 in court costs. Baum was indicted on one count of theft by deception but prosecutors later dismissed the charge, according to J.P. Suarez, director of the Division of Gaming Enforcement.

Baum had to give back the money. The casino didn't have to pay the rest of the jackpot, but it did pay a price for the incident through the fine imposed by the Casino Control Commission.

DeLury told regulators the casino tries to keep minors out but can never succeed totally.

"Absent airport-like security, there's going to be some occurrences when someone gets through, and that's what happened here," he said.

So far this year, 10 people have been prosecuted for underage gambling at the Hilton, 842 other minors have been removed from the casino and 2,679 prevented from entering, he said.

"Casinos have to make sure people who are underage aren't gambling," Suarez said. "Just because an underage person happens to win, it doesn't exonerate the casino from keeping kids from gambling. In this case, both parties were wrong and both had to confront the realities of it."