Lost £2m at The Ritz? You’ll easily afford it
What judge told Saudi heiress who tried to sue casino
AN ‘unimaginably rich’ Saudi heiress who lost £2million in one night of gambling at The Ritz was yesterday chastised by a judge, who ordered her to pay everything she owed.
Nora Al-Daher, 47, tried to sue the Piccadilly casino for encouraging her to keep spending, claiming staff ‘took advantage of her gambling addiction’.
But at the High Court yesterday, Judge Anthony Seys Llewellyn threw out the case, saying she was fully responsible for her actions.
He said the loss was no catastrophe for the Arab politician’s wife, who once had £6million transferred into her account over a period of just ten days after claiming she ‘needed it to pay for the kids’.
Two months after her losses in London, she and her family lost another £3million in Las Vegas.
‘ Mrs Al- Daher is a person of wealth unimaginable to the ordinary person and, I suspect, to many of moderate or substantial wealth,’ the judge said.
‘The enormous sums she gambled and the enormous losses she sustained were within her means.’
Mrs Al-Daher – who is the daughter of a wealthy Saudi and is married to Omani foreign minister Sayyid Badr bin Hamad bin Hamood Al-Busaidi – had built up a reputation for spending huge amounts in casinos before arriving at The Ritz on April 3, 2012. Within hours, she reached her £1.7million cheque limit playing card game punto banco – a type of baccarat.
At her request, the limit was then extended to £2million, which she lost while also giving out £14,000 in tips to the dealer and other staff.
But some of the cheques she issued were not honoured, and The Ritz took her to court to claim £1million in unpaid debts.
Mrs Al-Daher, known as ‘Princess Nora’, subsequently launched a counter- claim, arguing that staff wrongly allowed her to gamble on credit. She claimed she should be given back the £1million that she had already paid to The Ritz.
She argued that she had been a ‘vulnerable’ gambling addict since 1999, and said casino staff ‘ positively encouraged’ her to keep playing when she was in no fit state to continue. ‘I refused to deal with the thought that I was a gambler and, for that matter, a high roller,’ she told the court.
‘I always felt that I was in control and could stop whenever I wanted to ... I needed someone that night
‘I needed someone to tell me to stop’
to tell me to stop playing and bring me to my senses.’
Yesterday, Judge Seys Llewellyn exonerated The Ritz, saying Mrs Al-Daher had given no sign that her gambling was out of control.
The court also heard there was no medical or psychiatric evidence that she was a gambling addict. During her frequent trips to Lon- don, Mrs Al-Daher has been a regular in the capital’s casinos, often spending outrageously.
The judge said: ‘She exhibited no signs of distress, irritation, anger or loss of control that evening.
‘It is striking that she and her family gambled away five million US dollars in Las Vegas in June some two to three months later.
‘The scale of her wealth ... is an inescapable feature of this case, as is the fact that, for those with the means to do so, it may be acceptable, or even enjoyable, to ride the roller coaster of losses.’
He rejected claims that Mrs AlDaher had been given credit in breach of gaming rules.
Mrs Al-Daher, who lives in Muscat, Oman, was ordered to pay the £1million she owed, plus interest.