Operator News
Chile – Sun Monticello ordered to pay out after croupier shot dead
By Phil - 13 December 2019
A court in Chile, has ordered the owners of the Sun Monticello casino San Francisco Investment SA to pay $110m (US$143,255.626) to relatives of a worker who lost his life when shots were fired by a gambler in the casino in July 2, 2017.
In the ruling, Judge Alvaro Durandal Martínez accepted the claim for compensation of damages filed by the relatives of the murdered croupier. The judge found that the company did not have sufficient means to detect weapons at the entrance to the establishment.
This concluded the judge “constitutes a breach of the general conditions of safety of the workplaces and implies not taking the necessary measures to protect the life, health and in general the physical integrity of the workers”, the ruling states.
The resolution added that the company had failed to act even after a previous armed assault inside the casino.
The owners of the Sun Monticello casino, the largest casino in Chile were being sued by family members of a victim who died during a shooting on the premises. Carolina de los Angeles Carreño Avila was murdered by problem gambler, Osvaldo Campos Azocar, 42. The incident, which took place after the player had lost more than £20,000, his life savings at the roulette table, saw the country’s gambling regulator call for a review of the casino’s security measures. The croupier was one of two fatal victims during the attack, which took place on July 2. The man, who worked as a vet, later committed suicide by lethal injection in one of the casino’s toilets, having locked himself in the bathrooms for 17 hours.
Lawyers claimed that the accident was caused by negligence and a lack of duty of safety and care by the defendant. According to the plaintiffs, a number of events had occurred recently at the casino, which should have made the company adopt security measures and train staff so that they would have been able to deal with dangerous situations more effectively.
