An exclusive London casino racially discriminated against one of its dealers by allowing a request by a patron not to have black dealers at their table, an employment tribunal has found.

Semhar Tesfagiorgis, 41, successfully sued Crown London Aspinalls, in Mayfair, over an incident in December 2019, when she and a black colleague were prevented from working at the table of a patron who had requested “females with fair skin”.

The casino had tried to argue that the reason for not allowing Tesfagiorgis and her colleague to deal to the patron was not because of race but because of the perception that it was necessary to accommodate patrons’ request, no matter how unreasonable, in order to the further the interests of the business. This was rejected by the three-person panel sitting at London central employment tribunal, led by Judge Elliot.

In a written judgment, it said: “Our finding is that the claimant and her black female colleagues were held back from going on duty because they were not ‘fair-skinned, female dealers’ or ‘western-looking female staff’ …

“The accommodation of the request was direct race discrimination of the claimant because but for her race she would have been asked to deal to the patron. The granting of that request was less favourable treatment by the managers because of race.”

The tribunal also found that a complaint relating to an incident in June 2015 would have succeeded as an act of direct race discrimination but was time-barred because the claim had been brought too late.

In that incident, Aspinalls refused to accommodate a request by Tesfagiorgis for a shift swap because a patron did not want a black female dealer.

The panel said: “The shift swap was refused because of the claimant’s race: she did not fit the patron’s requirement for ‘white female dealers only’, which the respondent accommodated. The reason the claimant was not one of the patron’s preferred dealers is because she was not white. The refusal of the shift swap was less favourable treatment of the claimant because of her race.”

The panel noted that the casino had only one slide on a presentation given during training that dealt with patrons’ behaviour, describing the training as “inadequate”.

Comparing her victory to David versus Goliath, Tesfagiorgis, who worked as an inspector/dealer at Aspinalls between 2017 and 2020, said: “I tried for many years to open a dialogue about the racism myself and many others were often faced with but I was either shut down, ignored or gaslighted each time.

“The direct discrimination myself and other black colleagues received was not an isolated incident. Although the tribunal could not rule on past events due to time limits, they have acknowledged this was the case and for once Crown Aspinalls will finally be forced to do the same, for this I am grateful to the employment tribunal.”

Her solicitor, Shazia Khan, a founding partner of Cole Khan, said she hoped the judgment led to “root-and-branch reform of the casino and gaming industry to address the racist and sexist conduct that drove my client out of a career she clearly loved”.