Why B.C. Casinos Demand Bank Receipts For Big Buy‑Ins

Big wins, bigger rules, and the fine print that shapes how money and data move in British Columbia. We start with the sourced cash condition that kicks in when casino buy‑ins exceed $10,000 and follow a frequent winner who challenged the requirement as unfair. The court weighed his argument against a framework that aims to deter money laundering with minimal burden, landing on a pragmatic outcome: reasons should usually be given, but receipts and bank trails are a reasonable gate to the high‑cash floor.

From the cage to the checkout line, we then trace how Home Depot shared hashed email addresses from e‑receipts with Facebook to measure ad performance. The privacy class action clears a major hurdle, and the Court of Appeal signals that common issues can proceed even when individual impacts vary. One notable wrinkle: corporations aren’t automatically excluded from privacy protection where legislation is silent. For customers, it’s a real‑world lesson in how ad‑tech works behind the scenes; for businesses, a reminder that consent, transparency, and vendor integrations must line up with privacy law.

We close with a difficult truth about B.C.’s no‑fault auto insurance and the absence of robust wrongful death damages. After a fatal crash caused by a driver fleeing police, grieving families face strict limits on compensation despite criminal convictions. The law values economic loss far more than grief, leaving young victims’ families with modest benefits that feel stark compared with the harm. It’s a policy choice with real human cost, and we explore what meaningful reform could look like.

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Follow this link for a transcript of the show and links to the cases discussed.

Transcript

Casino Cash Controls Explained

Adam Stirling 0:15

For activity in British Columbia casinos upheld on judicial review. What happened?

The High Roller’s Challenge

Michael Mulligan 0:22

Well, that concept, I must say, I frankly hadn't heard of it, I guess not having spent a whole lot of time in uh casinos in British Columbia. Uh, but they have a uh practice in place now that's been in place following that review. Uh listeners may recall that occurred over the money laundering in BC uh casinos uh in the past. Um and uh the uh case dealing with this gives some sense of just uh how much cash flows through casinos each year. And it's uh like in 2014 in British Columbia, uh BC Casinos accepted nearly$1.2 billion in cash uh involving transactions of more than$10,000 from$1,881 individuals. Uh and cash buy-ins uh included uh buy-ins of more than$100,000. So there's a lot of cash moving through these places. Um and one of the things that was adopted uh was this idea of a sourced cash condition, which is now applied to anyone who tries to buy in uh for more than$10,000 in cash at one time. Uh and if you try to do that, if you show up there with$11,000 and try to buy poker chips or something, uh then they are going to require you to provide information including bank account information, records of the transaction showing that the cash was withdrawn from a like a bank account uh to try to make sure it didn't come from some other illegitimate source. Now, the particular case, and it was a judicial review brought by a uh a person uh who was a frequent uh gambler uh and would frequently use cash that was not uh uh trying to use more than$10,000, but would routinely try to use would routinely use$9,000 or less buying in. Um and what happened is that the casino made a decision to place this person on a quote sourced cash condition for the purpose of any buy-in, so that he would have to explain where did this money come from and provide bank account information, records of the transaction, this and that. Uh and so uh he brought this uh case, a judicial review of that decision, arguing, amongst other things, that it was procedurally unfair when they imposed this uh condition on him. Uh and his uh the couple of interesting things about it. Um first of all, he says, look, I've got a very reasonable explanation for why I'm always coming in with all this cash is because I keep winning at the casino. And indeed, he pointed out, the judge said quite reasonably, that according to the BC Lottery Corporation's own evidence, between February 2019 and July of 2021, his net winnings at the casino after buy-ins was$141,655. Wow. And the casino would pay him out in cash. Uh so his avo his his view is look, uh, you can tell where I'm getting this cash from. I wanted from you. Um and he would uh say, look, you know what he would do is if he won um more than$9,000, he would uh take that and put it in his bank account and he would keep the$9,000 and bring that back to keep gambling the next day, being apparently quite successful. He probably don't want to sit down with this guy at the poker table. I must say it doesn't say what the guy's playing, uh, but uh that's what he would do uh and uh successfully for an extended period of time. Uh and he uh he got he didn't get any explanation for why he was put on the condition. The other odd thing about it um is that despite this clear winning streak uh for that period of time, he for reasons unknown, in uh 2021, decided to enroll himself in the BC Lottery Corporation's quote voluntary self-exclusion program, which had the effect of him deciding for himself to bar himself from going into any casino for a period of three years. So maybe he decided to take his winnings and run so he wasn't able to go back in. But he did that for three years, and then in 2024 he decided to, after his break, go back. I guess he was making a lot of money at the casino. Uh and only then did he find out that shortly after he'd placed himself on that voluntary exclusion program, the casino decided to put him on the sourced cash condition. And so he came back and said, Well, this isn't fair. You didn't give me any chance to be heard about this, you didn't tell me why you put me on these conditions. I want to challenge that in court. He said, I got a good reason why he had all this cash. Uh and the other element of it is he said the way he would operate is that if he won more than 9,000, excess goes to his bank account, he keeps 9,000 in cash to come back. Uh, and he said if he lost money, I guess that happened from time to time, he would take a cash advance from his credit card using a bank machine in the casino. But that didn't meet these requirements because it wasn't, I guess, producing the necessary bank account information, because it was a cash advance. And so, on that basis, he gets this ju he's it brings us to court for a judicial review. And he says, Look, I'm not a money launderer. Uh, and his reason for bringing it, he explained to the judge, was that he felt that he was being uh sort of uh point, you know, implied that he was somehow involved in money laundering and that that would be sort of damaging to his reputation. People would be concerned he's involved in criminal activity, and he says, I'm absolutely not. And frankly, he's probably not. If you were, you're probably not going to court having this long argument about all of this, right? And and indeed, he has records, and the casino has records about how much money he was winning. Now, after the challenge was brought, and only after, the casino offered the explanation for the lottery corporation for why they uh put him on this condition. And their explanation was that he was frequently doing large cash buy-ins, yeah, that's true, and that they were frequently amounts just under that ten thousand dollar threshold, right?$9,000. And so I guess they were suspicious somebody was doing he was doing this to avoid that reporting requirement if he brought in just a little bit more. And then finally, that he his uh job was working at Canada Post, which they said didn't suggest a large disposable income or regular cash income. And so that was their reason for doing it. And they only provided that after he brought this challenge. And so the judge had to decide was this decision procedurally fair? Uh and in that regard, there is a requirement for government decisions to be procedurally fair. And there's a Supreme Court of Canada case, uh, Baker's from 1999. And what the Supreme Court of Canada said is that the the duty of procedural fairness, which does exist, the lottery corporation argued that they had no duty to be fair. The judge didn't buy that. But he said, look, the uh the this case says that the degree of procedural fairness is going to depend on the kind of decision the government's making. And so, for example, if they're making some adjudicative decision, like, you know, I don't know, are they going to uh expropriate your house to build a highway? You know, there might be a high duty of fairness, right? Like give the person a chance to be heard, give written reasons. But if you have some low-level kind of administrative decision, let's say, I don't know, uh the municipality decides to change your garbage pickup day or something, right? They they wouldn't have to give you a chance to be heard and give written reasons and all of that, right? And so the judge had to sort of characterize, well, what is this? And and you know, the man's arguing, hey, this is sort of implying that I'm a criminal, I'm not, uh, I have a full explanation for it, right? So he said I should have greater procedural fairness. And the judge did conclude that, you know, it would be appropriate in most cases for, at the very least, the person to be told why they've done this, right? The reasons for the decision, acknowledging that there could be cases which are the information so sensitive that they couldn't share it. Like, I don't know, let's say there was some undercover tip that the person's a you know money launderer, drug trafficker, or something they can't share. So it wouldn't always apply. But in the judge's view, despite the man's concerns, right, about how this uh you know reflects upon him being categorized in this way, he found that the decision didn't really amount to uh that great uh of a burden. Uh it uh you know only requires a person to provide uh these receipts showing that the money got with you know withdrawn from their bank account. And what a person can do is they can take there, this guy's waiting all the time, he could take all of his money, deposit that all into his bank account, uh, and then take a withdrawal to then get the receipt and then march back into the casino. And that's known, it's not like that's sort of uh some secret loophole, but if people are doing that, uh there's uh legislation in Canada FinTrack provides that like banks have an obligation uh to report large cash transactions. And so there would then be uh like a tri paper trail uh of that happening. I guess it could have other implications too, right? Like this fellow, while he works at Canada Post, you know, generally uh winnings from uh like uh if you win the lottery in Canada, this is the difference in the U.S., you don't pay tax on it in Canada. Same at the casino. If you go into the casino and you hit the jackpot, you don't pay tax on it. The U.S. does, right? If you if you win the jackpot in Las Vegas, they're gonna withhold a portion of what you won to tax you on it. Now, there's a caveat to that, which is if you are a professional gambler, you're no longer a person who's just sort of, you know, won the lottery. That's your job. Uh and then what you're going to earn is going to be income. And you are going to have to pay tax on it, right? And so if you're the person who every day goes down to the casino regularly and gambles all the time and makes a lot of money at it, can can the customer CRA may take the view that, hey, that's not a winning, that's a job. Um, and that same kind of thing can happen with other transactions. You know, there could be uh you know distinction made about whether something is uh you know a capital gain or uh income and so on based on whether that's your uh source of income. So at the end of the day, the judge found that here finally the guy did get the explanation that should generally be provided, uh, but there was no obligation to allow the man to be you know making submissions before they decided this. Uh and uh even though that the, you know, given that the man finally did get an explanation, given the judge's conclusion that it's not a great imposition, uh, this stands. Uh no costs award against him for the uh bringing the judicial review. But if he wishes to carry on uh with his uh gambling, at least in uh BC, uh he's gonna have to bring in receipts showing how he withdrew the money from his bank account. And there's then gonna be a trail there that could be uh audited uh, I guess, for a variety of purposes. So that's what a sourced cash condition is, and that's how it applies uh in uh casinos in BC.

Fairness, Baker, And Administrative Duty

Adam Stirling 11:10

Michael Mulligan, it will continue right after that. Michael Mulligan with Mulligan.

Paper Trails, Taxes, And Practical Workarounds

Michael Mulligan 11:34

Well, first off, I should say by uh maybe this is some insight into the kind of high flugin life I lead, but while I'm not spending a lot of time in the uh high stakes area of BC casinos, I have made a trip or two to Home Depot over the past few years. And for listeners that uh may have done the same thing, you may recall that when you go into Home Depot and buy something, one of the things that pops up is do you wish an emailed receipt? Uh and you might think, oh great, that'll be handy, one less piece of paper in my pocket in case the whatever it is you just bought doesn't fit or work or something. Well, it turns out, and this is common ground according to this decision from the BC Court of Appeal, that between October of twenty eighteen and October of twenty twenty two, uh Home Depot would uh take the email addresses or the hash values for them, which allows you to match it up and figure out what it is if you know the original email address, and save that and share that all with Facebook. Anybody, why? Why are they doing that? And they they shared 6.85 million uh hashed email addresses with Facebook slash meta during that period of time. And what was going on, apparently, is that Home Depot was doing advertising on Facebook, and by sharing the email addresses of all the people that pushed yes to the when you like an online receipt or like an emailed receipt, it would then allow Facebook to match up the email addresses of people that were buying stuff at Home Depot to try to then say, hey, look how well our advertising your advertising's working on Facebook, so do more of it or change it or do whatever. So, you know, if you think your phone might be listening to you and it's off and sending you ads accordingly, this may be another way that it's getting information uh about you. And so that fact pattern, which is common ground here, has led to a class action case uh being brought in BC. Um and the class action, the uh uh uh firm bringing it uh on behalf of the representative plaintiff uh was asking that the class action be certified on the basis of both a breach of contract claim and a breach of the privacy legislation uh in BC. And at the uh hearing uh to determine certification, uh the judge at the hearing certified it on the basis of the breach of privacy claim, which would be operative both in BC and some other provinces that have similar legislation, but declined to certify it on the breach of contract part of it. That led, inevitably, as these things do, to Home Depot appealing the certification uh decision, because that's where a lot of these legal fights go on is whether you're allowed to start the class action or not. It also led to the representative plaintiff uh arguing, hey, you should have certified this on the contractual basis as well. So that wound up in the Court of Appeal uh just recently, and the uh Court of Appeal had to analyze that. First of all, the way it works, the reason why the contract claim was dismissed is that the judge found that based on the pleadings, like what happens in a civil case, you have these things called pleadings where you set out, like, here's why I'm suing you, you know, in writing, in detail. And then the other side would respond to that, saying, Well, here's why you should fail in your effort to sue me, right? Um, and the judge concluded that on the contract claim, uh, there was just no chance of success. And the way that works is that uh a judge, when that kind of an application is being made, saying, hey, this is just doomed to fail, it can't possibly work, a judge would assume that all the things that you're saying in your pleadings are true, and then ask themselves, okay, if you proved all the things that you say happened here, would you get any money? Right? Uh and here the judge found that on the contract part of it, uh the pleadings did not set out what the alleged contract was or what the terms of it were, or was it oral or written, or you know, what express terms were you saying there, even if it wasn't written down. What are you saying this contract was? Uh and the judge found that it just wasn't specified. It was just a more generalized claim about uh a breach of contract. And so on that basis, when there's an appeal, this is interesting, when there's an appeal to the Court of Appeal, that kind of a determination that this is hopeless, and we're striking out the claim is reviewed by the Court of Appeal on a correctness standard, because they can just look at the wording, look at what's in the pleadings, and they'll just decide for themselves. Now, that didn't get anywhere in the Court of Appeal. The Court of Appeal looked at it and said, yeah, the judge was quite right, it just doesn't say what the contract was or what terms were breached or anything else. So that didn't go anywhere. But on the other hand, Home Depot's effort to get rid of the claim for the privacy breach also didn't get anywhere in the Court of Appeal. And there were a couple of interesting arguments made there. First of all, the Home Depot argued that, well, all these people are just so different, right? The uh, you know, somebody might have had a really big impact on the privacy breach, somebody else none at all, uh, you know, so how can we just deal with this as a class action? That didn't get anywhere. The Court of Appeal actually referenced a case from a few years ago in BC where an ICBC employee was selling customer information uh to somebody who was then going around and shooting up their houses. I guess they were thinking trying to identify people at the Justice Institute, I think. And they said, no, that's fine. Uh, you know, there can be individualized things, but the common issue, like, you know, the person stealing the addresses or whether this is a breach of privacy, that can properly be dealt with as a class action. The other argument that Home Depot made, which was an interesting, although unsuccessful one, is they were saying, well, they shouldn't have said it shouldn't have certified this class action to include any corporations on the basis that how could a corporation have a privacy interest with respect to their email address. That interestingly also failed. Um, and the Court of Appeal pointed out that, well, that's an interesting issue. Uh, you know, when you look at the Interpretation Act and you look at the legislation, it doesn't expressly say that a corporation cannot have its privacy breached. And so the Court of Appeal found it's quite reasonable for the judge to have concluded this. On that part of the appeal, it's not a correctness thing, it's sort of a reasonableness analysis because it's a matter of discretion. But the uh Court of Appeal found that no, that's uh that's well, it's an interesting argument. There's nothing in the legislation that excludes a corporation, and you might well have a successful claim for breach of corporate privacy. And so we'll have to wait and see how this case plays out, uh, but it's going to proceed because the certification, at least on that privacy uh ground, uh, has been upheld. And so I thought it was an interesting case, both so everyone can know where their uh information is going to Facebook and how Facebook might know that you bought a hammer at Home Depot. Uh and uh uh on the uh flip side uh that uh issue of the uh privacy uh for corporations. So that's the latest from the Court of Appeal on uh the Home Depot class action about sharing info with Facebook.

Adam Stirling 18:14

All right. Three minutes left route at uh 59. It's like families of two young people killed in a car accident, classified driver convicted of two counts of criminal negligence causing death, one count driving while disqualified, one count flight from police are receiving only forty thousand dollars from ICDC. Is that correct?

Home Depot Email Sharing With Facebook

Michael Mulligan 18:33

That's correct. Tragic case. It's a case involving a person who was fleeing from a traffic stop uh and crashed into the car these two young men were in. The two young men were coming back from a soccer match and killed them. Um and that occurred in 2022, and there are a few things that wrapped up in that. First of all, that's after no fault came in. Uh that's one of the things. Um, and so the uh young people here, uh the family of the deceased young people, two different families, uh, were trying to get compensation for it. Uh and they ran into two problems. Uh one is the the general pro operation of the uh no fault provisions, but their argument there was because this guy, the driver, was convicted of multiple criminal offenses and sent to prison, you could ordinarily you can sue him even after no fault. But the second problem they've run into is that in British Columbia, unlike other provinces like Ontario, for example, uh we don't have any legislation that allows for what are called wrongful death uh compensation. And what that effectively means is that if you're negligent, like this person clearly was, fleeing from the police and hit these two young men and killed them, uh, you could be sued successfully for the lost income if somebody was like uh supported others. Like if you killed somebody who like supported children, uh somebody who had a job to support their family. You could be sued and be required to make up for the lost income. But you can't successfully sue her they what you would get would be next to nothing if you're negligent and you kill somebody who is not providing financial support, as these two young people, aged 17 and 18, they weren't supporting anyone, they were kids. Uh and so that uh it means that they wound up with just that no-fault benefit. And in BC, that's been the case for a long time, and it's largely so because uh the government would wind up on the hook for not only things like um wrongful death in car accidents, but all kinds of other deaths that might occur due to like medical negligence or kids dying in care and so on. Uh and so uh in BC, we uh remain in the position where there isn't compensation for wrongful death in any meaningful fashion. Um so that's what's been going on in this case. It's got a bit of uh media attention, uh, and that's why uh even when you have a tragic death, and even when it's caused by criminal conduct driving, uh, it may mean that uh there's little or no compensation available uh for the grief uh and loss suffered by the family. So that's the uh latest on uh IC B C compensation in the age of no fault and without uh wrongful death legislation uh in BC.

Adam Stirling 21:07

Michael Mulligan with Mulligan Defense Glories, legally speaking, during the second half of our second hour every Thursday. Thanks so much. Thanks so much. Always great to be here.