A self-confessed gambling addict told the New Westminster Supreme Court that when she begged for help from the B.C. Lottery Corporation, an employee taunted her as the casinos let her gamble.

Joy Ross said when she was let in to gamble and lose $330,000 despite her membership in a problem-plagued program that was supposed to keep problem gamblers out of B.C. casinos.

“I said, ‘If you don’t keep me out, I’ll sue you,’” Ross told the court. “He said flippantly, ‘How are you going to sue? You have no money left.’”

“I want to suggest to you that he did not say that,” BCLC Lawyer Michael Stephens countered a short time later.

“I suggest that I am not making that up,” Ross replied.

Ross is suing BCLC, Orangeville Raceway, and Gateway Casinos, claiming the facilities failed to keep her out after she signed up for the province’s self-exclusion program.

The program is designed to give problem gamblers help to avoid losing if they feel they are in over their heads, and help those who sign up stay out of casinos for a prescribed length of time from months to years.

“You will not be allowed back in before your exclusionary period is up,” the brochure for the program says, according to Ross’s statement of claim.

But Ross said casinos including Cascades and Fraser Downs allowed her back many times in to lose hundreds of thousands of dollars.

“Our allegations are that there was a failure to comply with enforcement regimes that ought to have applied,” said her lawyer, Jim Hanson. “We hope that BCLC and casinos hold them to a higher standard and fewer people will be able to continue in their addictions.”

In a CTV News Investigation in 2010, a CTV News producer also signed up for the program and faced no resistance from staff as he gambled at four Lower Mainland casinos.

“Our argument is that the self-exclusion program is just window dressing,” said one of Ross’s lawyers, Brian Trainor. “They’ve done effectively nothing to stop a woman who wanted help with her addiction. Instead the Crown is making money hand over fist.”

A government study last year concluded that problem gamblers regularly tried to defeat the security system. BCLC promised to increase security at casinos, adding random ID checks. BCLC would not answer questions today about whether those random checks are in place.

But the government study also noted that problem gamblers go to extreme lengths to defeat the system, including using fake names. Some gamblers in the study breached more than 25 times. That’s despite consequences for violating the program that can include a $5000 fine and denial of jackpot winnings.

The court heard Ross signed her mother’s name to the forms to claim winnings 55 times over the course of the program. Ross said she was not checked for ID when she claimed her winnings, she said.

“It says you will be asked for ID, but no one asked me for ID,” she said. “I bet most gambling addicts aren’t criminals, they wouldn’t get a fake ID. If BCLC wanted to help addicts this would be a simple way to do it.”

The case is the first of several to make it to court. Four other problem gamblers in B.C. have filed similar claims, and claims in Ontario have been settled out of court.

Profits from BCLC including lotteries and casino gambling added about $1.1 billion to provincial coffers last year. Other provinces also profit from licensed gaming.

“If the court finds she has a case and can recover that money it’s going to cause a lot of problems for provincial governments across the country,” said gaming researcher Garry Smith of the University of Alberta.