I don’t know if there have been more cases lately or if I have just been paying more attention, but it seems like a lot of people are racking up gambling debt at casinos and then actually believing that they don’t have to pay it off. Such thinking is madness, of course. Back in the old days, if you stiffed a casino you ended up buried in the desert. Today, you end up in court. The most recent case involves a Florida millionaire who owes money to a Connecticut casino.

Jerome Powers is asking a Connecticut appeals court to overturn a lower court’s ruling that the Mohegan Sun casino can freeze his assets to recover the $1.2 million he owes the company. The dispute dates back to May of 2009, when the casino loaned him $1.2 million, which Powers then lost. He wrote six checks to the casino to pay off the debt, but his bank did not honor them. Payment was stopped on one check that was for $465,000 and the other checks were returned when the account was closed. Unable to recover the money they loaned to Powers, the casino filed a lawsuit in November of 2009, which they later won.

Now Powers is fighting the lawsuit, asking the Connecticut appellate court to throw out the lesser court’s ruling on two grounds. First, he argues that the credit agreement between him and the casino was an illegal gambling contract. Secondly, he contends that the state court system has no jurisdiction over the matter because the Mohegan Sun is operated by a sovereign Native American tribe.

Both arguments were previously made at the New London Superior Court, but were rejected by Judge Trial Referee Robert Lueba. According to Lueba, a 2009 state Supreme Court ruling said that gambling contracts are legal in the state as long as the gambling in question is legal. Since the Indian-run casinos in Connecticut, including the Mohegan Sun, are legal, so is the loan. Lueba also rejected Powers’s jurisdictional challenge, citing previous state rulings on the matter.

The Mohegan Tribe has its own court system and it is unknown why they filed the lawsuit in a state court instead of a Mohegan court. According to Lueba, though, they had the option of pursuing the case in either jurisdiction.

So far the tribe has not been able to get Powers to disclose his assets, though he is known to be a millionaire. He is the owner of Plum TV, a lifestyle network available in several affluent areas of the United States that caters to the wealthy. He founded Ocean Drive magazine and recently launched the first issue of Plum Miami magazine. It is not known when or if the state appellate court will hear his case.

I never use markers at casinos. I think it’s poor money management to ever spend money that you don’t currently have with you. A lot of people, especially high rollers who don’t want to carry that much money around, like to use them, though.

How it’s supposed to work is that you get markers from the casino for money that you currently have in your bank account and then you wager the money that the casino provided you. A marker from a casino is the same as a credit line. You use the credit to gamble but the understanding, like any other credit line, is that you will repay the casino.

Du Chan Trinh, a San Diego resident, not only has not repaid the casino, but he took out the credit marker knowing he did not have the money to repay it, according to the casino chain. Caesars Entertainment Corporation is suing Trinh, saying that he took out gambling markers totaling $140,247 from four of their casinos. According to Caesars, he took out the markers at the Rio, Planet Hollywood, Paris Las Vegas and Harrah’s Rincon Casino knowing that he had no money to cover the credit line. Caesars say that Trinh’s actions were “willful, malicious and intentional.”

Those markers were returned unpaid by Trinh’s banks, with the checks indicating that the account was closed. In an effort to recoup their losses, Caesars is suing him, but they are going to have a hard time getting the money. That’s because Du Chan Trinh is bankrupt.

Trinh filed from Chapter 7 bankruptcy on October 12, 2010. Caesars filed a complaint with the California bankruptcy court, asking them not to cancel the gambling debts so they can eventually recoup the money they are owed.

In a sure sign that Trinh is really as bad with his finances as it sounds, his bankruptcy filings listed his assets as $400,000, with $781,000 worth of liabilities. That means he’s $381,000 in debt. Despite that, somehow he thought playing in a casino was a good idea! Caesar’s chain of casinos aren’t even the only casinos that Trinh owes money to. He also owes $30,000 to Barona Resort in Lakeside, California and $24,000 to the Penchanga Resort in Temecula, California.

Trinh has broken practically every rule of money management and casino gaming. If anyone should be placed on an exclusion list, which bans someone from a casino, this man should.

During his prime, ex-NBA player Antoine Walker was good at three things: shooting the three, firing the trifecta, and hoisting a trey. Yes, I’m aware that all three are the same thing. I’m saying that he was only good at camping out behind the three-point line and hitting open shots. There were many things that Walker was not good at, with the biggest being managing his money.

It seems that Walker should have hired an accountant, money manager or anybody to take care of his finances for him instead of doing it on his own. Over 13 seasons in the NBA – most of them with the Boston Celtics – Walker made $110 million. Now all of it is gone and Walker is in trouble.

It seems that in 2009, despite not actually having any money, Walker kept writing checks to casinos for loans. Upon losing the money on the floor, the casino wasn’t able to recoup the money because there was no money to cover the bad checks. It is alleged that he wrote approximately $1.2 million in bad checks to casinos in Indiana and Las Vegas. Walker then negotiated a settlement with the casinos and has so far paid off approximately $135,000 of his debt.

Walker was also indicted for felony check fraud. Today, Walker’s attorney met before a Las Vegas judge, who gave Walker a June 14 court date for the criminal charges. If convicted, Walker could face up to 12 years in prison. Last week, Walker – facing foreclosure on a $2.3 million Chicago mansion – filed for bankruptcy. In the bankruptcy hearing, the claim states that Walker has $4.2 million in assets and $12.7 in liabilities. By my math, that means Walker is $8.5 million in the red.

Even in these dire straits, Walker is spending a lot of money. According to Walker, he spends $1000 on clothes, $1000 on recreation, $1000 on transportation (that does not include car payments), $1200 on housekeeping and $1000 in training every month. Maybe it’s just me, but if he’s $8.5 million in the hole, maybe he should wear the clothes he already has, entertain himself with cheaper activities and clean his own house. In fact, if he moved out of his Miami mansion and into a smaller house, it would be easier to clean.

Walker is requesting that he be allowed to retain his $2.3 million Miami home, his $54000 Range Rover and $2000 in cash. As for his plan on how to pay the money back? He seems to be going the Michael Vick route there. It seems that his strategy is to rejoin the NBA.

Walker was once a star with the Celtics, but he soon became replaceable when it was learned that someone who plays defense, will pass on occasion, and will occasionally drive to the basket can be more helpful than a spot-up shooter who does nothing else. Walker then became a bench player with the Miami Heat, where he won a championship, and then washed out of the league after the 2008 season. So now he wants to rejoin the NBA? Does anybody need a selfish jump shooter who won’t pass or play defense?