Crown London Aspinalls Hit With Racial Abuse Lawsuit
Crown London Aspinalls is one of the most prestigious and exclusive gambling clubs in the U.K and is now to have a VIP list of millionaire patrons.
The club is now facing legal proceedings filed by a long term table dealer who claims that the club encouraged racial abuse by ignoring employee complaints.
Semhar Tesfagiorgis has been with the club since 2007 and has worked as a table dealer. She claims that she has been subjected to racial abuse on multiple occasions and so have some of her colleagues.
Even when she raised her complaints to the management, she was brushed aside as the players involved were multi-millionaires.
Ms. Tesfagiorgis said that there were certain players who did not like to be placed at tables which had black dealers. These players would openly refer to black casino staff as gorillas and ask for them to be seated at tables where the dealers were white, lighter skinned or whiter. Some players would refer to black chips at the table as nigger chips.
She cites a particular wealthy Turkish player who racially abused her on two separate occasions. During one incident, he went on a long racially abusive rant calling her a f*** dirty woman and shouting at other casino staff and asking them to take her away from the tables else they would not get any more of his business.
Management Encourages Racial Abuse
Ms. Tesfagiorgis said that she went to the highest possible level and spoke to COO Michael Branson informing him of what was happening on the gaming floor on a regular basis and how she and her black colleagues were being racially abused on a regular basis.
She claims that Branson passed off her complaints by saying the patrons were not racially abusing anyone but were simply being superstitious as they believed fair skinned dealers would bring them more luck. Branson also asked her if she wanted him to ban a million pound punter and left things that way.
Ms. Tesfagiorgis claimed that the management was also passive to white staff, granting them permission and leave to look after their children but the same privileges were not given to her. She said that she had tried over the years to get the management to support her but when she had no more hope, she went to court.
Crown London Aspinalls has not released a statement as the matter is under legal proceedings.
Carolyn DuttonAuthor
Carolyn is our legislation expert, with a background in law she is able to cover the current state of gambling around the world
