The Venice casino will have to compensate 336 thousand euros to five former clients of Silvio Vannini, an insurance broker from San Piero in Bagno, accused of fraud because he had squandered large sums of his clients’ money in the Venetian rooms due to a serious gambling addiction. This was established by the Civil Court of Appeal of Bologna with a sentence which, in fact, creates a precedent in the field of liability of gaming halls. In particular, some checks from the clients of the financial consultant from Romagna had ended up at the casino, after having been made payable to the company that manages it, in exchange for chips. In other words, the judge held C.Di.VG spa (the company that manages the Venetian gaming halls) liable for objective undue debt.
This is only the latest act of a proceeding that began in 2015, when the same broker reported himself to the Guardia di Finanza of Forlì. On that occasion he confessed everything and it came to light, thanks to the documentation presented, that 9.6 million euros had been lost, of which 4 million were played at the Venice casino. It also emerged that the defrauded customers were around 70, spread across Italy.
The Court of Cassation itself, last month, ruled that the casino will have to pay a fine to the Mef as the administration of the gaming halls should have at least become suspicious when faced with bank drafts issued by around twenty different banks. In short, the casino should have been more careful and reported the Romagna broker for his behavior. Obviously among the wasted money there were also those of seven clients from the province of Forlì-Cesena who, already in 2022, had achieved a first success: the Court of Forlì had condemned the broker to return the sums that had been delivered to him and to pay them 1.5 million euros.
At the end of the whole affair (the consultant today is a 70-year-old with no registered movable or immovable assets who has undergone a detoxification process from gambling addiction for which a criminal case is no longer pending because it has expired), only five of his clients in the province of Forlì-Cesena will have to be compensated by the Venice casino for the money unduly collected.
