Entrance facade of the Resorts World New York City casino
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Along with over 5,000 blinking, whirring digital gambling machines, the new Resorts World Casino, opponents predicted, would bring a surge of crime to Queens when it opened last year.
Nine months later, police officers from the 106th Precinct have been a familiar sight, arrests frequent and acts of violence disturbingly common. There is, in fact, a crime wave plaguing the cavernous halls of this mega-casino: people punching gambling machines.
“It happens like three, four times a week, and that’s only on my shift,” said Mike Persaud, a security guard at the casino.
Mr. Persaud described the usual scene: fuming gamblers who have punched, kicked or slapped a slot machine that refused to spit out a jackpot, leaving flickering rows of cherries and number 7s beneath a pane of shattered glass. Their rage sometimes costs them more money than was lost to that unlucky machine in the first place.
“I lost $300 without a bonus, so yes, I broke the machine,” George Govan, a 56-year-old man from Brooklyn, told security guards when he punched through a terminal screen in January, according to court records. “And I’d do it again.” (Mr. Govan pleaded guilty and was sentenced to 90 days in jail.)
These demonstrations of slot and roulette rage are familiar to casino operators across the country, as well as to the police officers, hand surgeons and slot machine repair workers who deal with the aftermath.
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