"It seems crazy": Shane Dixon's gambling friend breaks his silence
The man who befriended Shane Dixon on a P&O Cruise before he plunged overboard has broken his silence, saying he too fell victim to seductive gambling tactics.
The man, James, and his friends met Shane on the first day of the Elvis themed cruise and casually socialised throughout the entire trip.
James, his friends, and Shane all spent time together in the onboard casino, where James was shocked by the blatant practices used by the cruise line to lure gamblers to the table.
"We all got given free cruises to use in the next six months from the casino director and I myself racked up almost $2,000 gambling which was charged to my credit card, something I would never normally do in a million years," James told Daily Mail Australia.
"He [Shane] was a great guy and it’s so wrong how the casinos push so hard to get you to gamble more.'"
When onboard a P&O cruise, customers use their room key, or "cruise card", as a form of currency to pay for various items onboard the ships.
Passengers can either pay "cash" by topping their cruise card up with set cash amounts using machines located around the vessel or by "card" by linking it to a credit or debit card.
James said the same payment methods extend to the casino, as every time a passenger plays a game in the casino they need to scan their cruise card, regardless of which type of payment arrangement they have set up.
When funds are depleted, players have the option to select "charge room" to add more money and the bill will be charged to the card associated with your room at the end of every day.
James said paying with this method makes it difficult to track how much you have spent, particularly as there is no internet on board to monitor transactions through online banking.
When James, luckily, won back most of his debt and chose to walk away from the table before any more damage occurred, he asked the cashier if he could enter a self-exclusion arrangement to bar him as he didn't trust himself to not spend the cash.
However, James said the cashier told him self-exclusion was not an option.
"They should have been able to [disable my room key] just like they do with minors, but the cashier said they don’t know how or if it’s even possible," he said.
"It seems crazy!"
According to P&O's website, self-exclusion is one of the initiatives punters can access under the company's "commitment to the responsible delivery of gaming on our ships".
The last time James saw Shane was while they were all dancing together in a bar at midnight on Monday. While he left to go to a club, Shane went back to the casino and just four hours later, the father-of-three was dead.
"We were all drinking heavily but he was full of energy and happy," James said, recalling their last encounter.
"He had been saying how he had lost heaps at the casino but we didn't know his situation so didn’t know how much of a big deal it was. He didn’t seem overly upset about it at the time. He seemed fine."
Shane had racked up over $4,000 in gambling debt, and went overboard while the ship was making its way into Sydney Harbour.
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