Casino Losses: Couple's Gamble Against Credit-Card Debt Pays Off

BOSTON - Richard and Michelle Kommit of Brookline, Mass., took a legal gamble when they refused to pay a $5,500 credit-card bill they racked up after borrowing money from an automatic teller machine in an Atlantic City casino.

Yesterday they hit the jackpot.

The Massachusetts Court of Appeals said the debt could not be collected because the laws of Massachusetts and Connecticut read that "a contract to pay money knowingly lent for gambling is void." The Kommits' credit card was issued by Connecticut National Bank, now a part of Shawmut National Corp. in Boston. The case now moves to a lower court, which must rule whether the bank should have known the money was going to be used for gambling.

The court ruling could spell trouble for banks. "In the worst-case scenario, people from Massachusetts could come to Atlantic City tonight, steal from their banks and say they lost the money gambling," said William Murtha, of the Casino Association of New Jersey.

Observed Walter Miller, a professor at Boston University's School of Law: "You don't put an ATM in a casino with the thought that people will use the money to buy dinner."