State regulators have agreed to a $7,500 fine against Lakeside Casino near Osceola for failing to have the proper backup power system in place to record all gambling activity. The casino ran into a problem when a car hit a power pole outside the casino on January 27th. The power was cut off for only a few seconds, but the backup power supply did not work properly, and the surveillance system began a reset. Nothing was recorded in the time the system was resetting.
It was the third time there had been a problem, with 2 others happening in February and August of last year. Lakeside General manager, Bob Thursby, says they have decided to start over. “We made several attempts to bring our system up-to-date following each of the incidents. And finally, we’ve redesigned and reequipped the entire system,” Thursby says.
Thursby told the commission the casino has spent in excess of a quarter million dollars on the new system. “We have rewired, redesigned it and brought all the cabling involved into it up to a standard well above where we were in anticipation of some other changes we are going to make probably next year in our slot-monitoring systems,” Thursby says.
The casino could have been fined up to $15,000.