Chris Gibbons:
The National Gambling Board has reviewed all the relevant facts associated with recent statements made by the governor of the Reserve Bank, Tito Mboweni. This of course was the series of remarks made by Uncle Tito about casinos undermining attempts to combat money laundering and cash-in-transit heists and there were a couple of rather irate casino owners who said that is simply not true, we don’t do that.

Now the National Gambling Board which is the statutory board which regulates the industry if you like, supervises the industry, has decided to have its six penny's worth on this one.

Advocate Majake good evening to you and welcome to the ‘World at Six’. The National Gambling Board has reviewed all the facts associated with the statements by the governor. What’s your response?

Thibedi Majake:
Thank you for the opportunity Chris. Primarily the response is nothing else other than restatement and confirmation of the simple principle that casinos should not benefit from the proceeds of crime. The fact of the matter is that ink stained notes, invariably, are ill-gotten and that is a principle that has been upheld by the National Gambling Board and that such notes should not be used to the benefit of the casinos.

Chris Gibbons:
Has that been happening? I think that is the critical question isn’t it?

Thibedi Majake:
The important question, because I think you will note that this is the first time this has happened and I think this thing should be looked at contextually in the sense that the affected casino in this matter, it maintains that these ink stained notes were received by the slot machines.

We have got things called bill validators; this is where the patrons or the gamblers put their money in the machines. It has not been physically handled by the people at the counter where invariably they could detect it. But again I must simply add that when this thing happened by then the technology had not so improved to detect such things. The type of bill validators now which we have in the casinos have so advanced that they can detect such ink stained notes.

Chris Gibbons:
Has the board, Advocate Majake, made a decision on whether or not it is going to support this one casino that is insisting on its right to present ink stained notes as legal tender? Do you support that claim?

Thibedi Majake:
I think the board has made it abundantly clear that as far as this matter is concerned we are supportive of the position, which is taken by the Reserve Bank Governor Tito Mboweni. The thing here is, we say that under most circumstances can such notes (not) be regarded or presented as legal tender because invariably they have been tampered with in the sense that when you have got ink banknotes, the fact is that they were ill gotten. I think that is the principle we are reaffirming here.

Chris Gibbons:
So if a casino has accepted an ink stained banknote albeit inadvertently because its technology might not have been sophisticated enough, that is the problem of the casino and the casino will have to sustain that loss.

Thibedi Majake:
I don't want to get into the merits of this matter in particular but I think it is the logical deduction or inference, which one can make here. Supposing the banker does accept such notes, invariably they come in unwittingly through these bill validators, the principle which we are stating here is that under no circumstances should the casino approach the Reserve Bank and say we need to present these notes as legal tender because as I am saying, the conclusion here is, such notes show that they were proceeds of crime.

The minute you have got banknotes, which are ink stained the logical inference you can make there is that they were ill gotten. So again I think I can agree with you, it will mean that unfortunately such loss have to be absorbed by the particular casinos.

Chris Gibbons:
That is Advocate Thibedi Majake who is CEO of the National Gambling Board and thank you for clarifying that here on the ‘World at Six’.