Except, they didn't do it.

Because like i said, its not that simple. they determined there is real liability in letting him play.
Zero percent chance that Venetians team of lawyers never thought of that solution, and no reason for them not to do it unless they determine there is risk involved.

I thought they did it later in the day? And they weren’t prepared for it at the time.

It's reasonable for the casino to completely change the structure of the tournament to allow someone to play 6/7/8 handed in a 9 handed tournament, a decision that would impact 50 (more???) people and potentially give one person an edge for real money, literally after the the tournament started

But it's a sad state of affairs for the caretaker to make a 5 minute call during a global pandemic to get this set up before hand.

Sounds reasonable to me

I didn't read everything, but I thought there was a one player per hand-rule? Couldn't the casino just argue based off that?

Along with what the guy above said, it feels like the other people in the tournament are being discriminated against.

It is not a lawyer's job, as a lawyer, to determine "the most profitable" anything for his client. A lawyer's job is to advise his client on the law, not usurp a management function.

You tell a client what the law is, and can discuss what the legal risks and likely consequences may be of related conduct or activity. You can't ethically or legally advise a client on how to break the law, even where as you put it, someone might think that "the most profitable play".

No insight as to what was actually said, or whether a "reasonable ADA accommodation" was provided, then pulled, then provided again .... there are different versions itt.

Not successfully, no.

In a situation like this, id say that is exactly the lawyers job.
If they feel that there could be a lawsuit no matter what they do, pick the least expensive option.
I never said that they are breaking the law or it would be okay for them to do so.

Its only reasonable to assume that in their opinion the risk of letting him play was too much, even though there would be backlash for not letting him play. And seeing as the lawyers are the ones Venetian spends millions of dollars on incase a situation like this comes up, i'll trust their decision making on this more than anyone on 2+2.

Its not some deep ethics question. Venetian was put in bad spot by laws that interfere with each other and had to chose one to abide by. No matter what they did people would be outraged. If they let him play outrage only happens a small percentage of time when something bad happens, but is much much worse. They didnt want to risk it.

You are naive .... Additionally, you clearly confuse the interest of the Venetian, which is what their lawyers would represent, with the interest of society, as embodied in laws like the ADA. Those two things may not be NOT synonymous.

Even more starkly, profitable gambling practices and casino duties under other statutes may conflict.

You likely do not know the Venetian was fined $47 million a while back by FinCEN for the admittedly profitable practice of allowing certain gaming activities on their property and not vetting/reporting the related financial transactions:

"The U.S. Justice Department concluded after an investigation in 2013 that the Las Vegas Sands Corp had allowed Chinese-Mexican drug lord Zhenli Ye Gon to spend more than $84 million at the Venetian casino without properly following anti-money laundering regulations and as a result hit the Las Vegas Sands Corp with a $47 million fine. FinCEN imposed an $8 million fine on Caesars Entertainment Corp in 2015 for failing to follow anti-money laundering regulations in its VIP rooms and allowing VIP players to conceal their identity and high value transactions.

The Las Vegas Sands Corp recently took two VIP Chinese gamblers to court for failing to pay back $6.4 million in gambling debt. The two women in their 50s lost millions of dollars playing baccarat, a game that Asian gamblers love to play. However the attorneys representing the two Chinese women state that they were not VIP gamblers but housekeepers hired by the Sands Corp to act as a front in signing IOUs and taking huge piles of money to the table where the actual VIP gamblers were seated.

The Sands Corp is alleged to have been aware of this operation at the Venetian and Palazzo casinos that was a front for money laundering. The attorneys alleged that “the Venetian/Palazzo’s conduct may have run afoul of federal criminal anti-money laundering laws”. A representative for the Sands Corp denied these allegations and stated that a smokescreen was being put up to divert attention from the fact that these two Chinese women owed the Sands Corp millions of dollars."

https://www.tightpoker.com/news/finc...undering-7571/

Similarly, as to the M:

https://www.fincen.gov/sites/default...nt%20Final.pdf

Yes, admittidley I am not a lawyer, like 99% of people ITT.
That was most logical explanation to me.. Since clearly there is no incentive for Venetian to discriminate against the player, I guess you and others believe Venetian and lawyers are just ignorant and made the wrong choice here.

Or are you saying that Venitians lawyers are acting illegally by not representing the interest of society by not complying with ADA?
Can’t you make the same argument if they didn’t comply with covid regulations?

Yes, it is perfectly reasonable.

Tournaments play with a different number of people at the table all the time. I have played in WSOP events where the event starts with three people playing at one table and eight people playing at another.

Even if you thought it was an advantage (or disadvantage) to play at a short-handed table, there's no way to angle-shoot this as long as the table draw for the non-disabled players is random.

And this sounds like it was just a low-stakes daily tournament where everyone is just trying to have fun anyway.

zedsdead (and a few others), I'm wondering if maybe you missed this Tweet that was posted on the first page of the thread:

"We have found a solution that allows for play while we remain compliant with governmental requirements."

Of course they did. This is why our side of the ball said the caretaker should have called ahead and why I keep calling it a Covid issues and not ADA discrimination.

Oh, Gzesh is here again. Ignoring the previous posts that he had no answer to... The convoy is still waiting.

Wait, are you still on about your hypothetical where 87 people show up in wheelchairs simultaneously looking to play in a SNG?

Seriously, why is this important, or what point is being made? Sincere question, because I've sort of lost of track of the back-and-forth on that one.

Why is it crazy for a group to go together on somewhat of a field trip out? I don’t see that as unreasonable.

Maybe they don’t even care about poker and just want a class action lawsuit

No, you can read my post(s) if you want to know what I said. I posted a coupe of examples where the Venetian, and other casinos, violated laws; "the lawyers" are not the shot-callers in the world of casino management, nor frankly is that their job.

Geez, Pete, you said you were from the UK.

Here in America, I'm afraid I would have to charge you a decent fee for fielding your silly hypothetical questions ad nauseam, no more free education for you about things American.

Hypothetically discussing disabled folk going on poker field trips during covid may not be time well spent, if you ask me.

Honestly, I don't care if it's reasonable or not (I had hoped the emoji had made that clear); I'm just curious where he was going with it, as I had assumed he wasn't organizing a field trip across the pond.

In all seriousness V, bellagio, caesars etc should all be prepared for such scenario

However my local casino which I’ve never seen a player have a helper is much more likely to run into this problem.

Both the big and small casinos don’t want to discriminate and have a chance of lawsuits but during covid everything is messed up. Nobody was prepared for a lot of what happened, many places are forever closed now

This all could of been avoided if the caretaker just put in 5 mins of effort before the day long journey.

You can’t tell me that every casino across America is prepared for this situation during covid

The lawyers are probably thinking going on a grand tour to sue as many as they can that can’t meet their demands on the spot

I was interested where the line was drawn on what was 'reasonable'. If you allow one disabled player and have to get a table to play shorthanded, how can you possibly deny the next, or the next entrant? If you do end up having four or five disabled players. what happens if they end up at the same table? Is it acceptable to discriminate against the 4th but not the 1st, 2nd or 3rd?

You're not just talking about a person in a wheelchair. You're talking about a person with a condition that is both extremely rare and extremely debilitating.

It's not productive to speculate about what might "reasonable" in the case of hypotheticals where the premise is itself not reasonable.

But you have to be prepared for such a scenario, as we have been so expertly told ITT.

I get it though, you will never hear a lawyer say ‘I don’t know’ on 2+2.

I know you didn't ask me, but common sense would dictate that of course there will be a line somewhere, and I don't expect anyone would be able to say with certainty what that number is.

However, if this is all you are after:

Then I guess I should leave things between you and Gzesh.

More than likely, yes. And while I believe those who say no call should be needed are correct, that doesn't mean it's not a good idea, much like I've checked websites or made calls to different businesses before going to see what might be different during Covid (not to equate my personal circumstances, of course). The flip side could be, though, what Venetian marketing has looked like since they've reopened. If they're trying to normalize as much as possible, IE "everything is safe, come back and gamble!", which wouldn't be surprising, people might not think to call ahead. So maybe it's something they didn't think to do, or perhaps they were wanting to see what would happen, as some have suggested.

Probably not.

Meh, that's a step too far for me. I know the reputation lawyers have, but this is pretty cynical. I'm sure we all hope you're wrong.

There's also a middle ground here - people using this not as a lawsuit platform, but as a way to highlight issues. For example, in this case some good could come of it as other casinos hear about it and ensure they have appropriate accommodations available. But maybe I'm just looking through rose-coloured glasses.