Ritz Casino Suing Another High Roller for Unpaid Debts

The Ritz casino in London is suing tycoon Safa Abdulla Al Geabury in London’s High Court for the £2m ($3.1m). Ritz is also seeking £200,000 ($310,000) in accumulated interest on the debt. However Swiss property tycoon said that his debts to a casino should be written off because he was in the grip of the gambling addiction at a time.

The Ritz casino claims that Al Geabury handed over £2.m check to fund a gambling session one night in February last year. However, his check bounced when the casino staff tried to cash it in at a bank the following day.

Al Geabury, who has been the member of the Ritz since August 2012, maintains that the casino staff should have known that he is a gambling addict and that they did nothing to prevent him from spending his money at the tables. In Al Geabury’s opinion his debts to the casino should be written off because of his addiction and his state of mind on the night when he lost the money.

At a pre-trial review judge said that psychiatric reports have been commissioned to examine Al Geabury’s state of mind on the night he lost the money and whether he was in a condition to control his actions.

Full hearing will be held at the end of the June as it was reported.

Ritz, owned by Sir Frederick and Sir David Barclay, has launched a series of cases against its high-roller clients in attempt to get back the money owed to the casino. They were forced to take legal actions against their customers because review of their accounts showed a loss of £12.5m, a loss which was a result of unpaid debts.

The Swiss property tycoon’s case is similar to the case of Nora Al-Daher, who tried to sue Ritz after she lost £2m in one night back in 2012. Nora, wife of the rich Omani politician, said that Ritz took advantage of her gambling addiction and did nothing to prevent her from accumulating such huge loss.

The court established that Nora Al-Daher had already accumulated huge losses at other casinos before she arrived to the Ritz.

During the court session she explained that casino employees were encouraging her to keep gambling despite the fact that they were all aware that she has gambling problems. The multi-millionaire maintained that that she needed someone to tell her to stop gambling that night. However the High Court has dismissed the case and rejected her claims.

Photo: mirror.co.uk