Children Left Alone While Parents Gamble at Casino

You have heard of the saying, ‘Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater.' It is an English idiom that means, 'Don't lose something valuable while we're getting rid of something else that you don't want.'   

In an odd kind of way, it relates to two women who have been banned from all casino destinations in the US for doing something rather similar to that in Philadelphia. They quite literally threw out the bath water and the babies.  

The two women involved in separate incidents at two different casinos left the children alone while they were gambling. One of the women was playing slots while the other was gambling at the tables.   

Another Hangover Baby Scenario  

The incident is one of a growing number in the US where parents have left their children while they go off and gamble. We reported on one incident recently, which we likened to the film ‘Hangover Baby’. It involved a baby being found abandoned in a hotel room in Bally’s Atlantic City on August 30. An immediate police intervention was prompted upon the discovery. 

It is understood one of the women in this most recent incident of child abandonment left an 11-year-old alone in a vehicle in a car park at Live! Casino, Philadelphia, while she threw away her cash on the slots. The temperature outside was 80 degrees.   

The other woman is said to have left three children between the ages of 8 and thirteen alone in a hotel room at the Mounty Airy Casino Resort while she was playing at the gaming tables.  

Campaign Info Reveals a Growing Trend in Abandoning Children to Gamble  

The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board announced the launch of a new awareness campaign aimed at stopping parents from leaving their children unattended while they gamble at casinos in 2022. The Bureau of Casino Compliance recorded 269 incidents involving 441 children who were left unattended. There has been a steady rise year on year.   

Doug Harbach from dontgamblewithkids.org said that they are seeing over 200 children under twelve and sometimes children as young as two or three years of age being left unattended.   

Charity Offers Advice and Issues Warning of Consequences 

Don’t Gamble With Kids offers advice on their website and states: Leaving a child in your care unattended while gambling in a casino is a serious issue that occurs far too often in Pennsylvania. In fact, this is happening to hundreds of kids a year at casinos throughout the state. You read that right. Hundreds! 

This decision by a parent or guardian to leave a child in their vehicle or in a hotel room not only endangers the child but can create significant and long-lasting negative results for the adults. 

The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board, therefore, is raising awareness with a campaign titled “Don’t Gamble with Kids.” This program is designed to shed light on the issue, not just for those adults who may consider leaving a child unattended in order to enter a casino, but for the gaming public, who can look for and report these incidents before a tragedy occurs. Leaving kids unattended for even one bet is never worth the gamble and together we can work to stop this problem. 

Highlighting the consequences of leaving children alone to go off and gamble, the organisation issued the warning:

You may not have considered the many ways that gambling with your child’s welfare can adversely impact your life. Here are just a few.