By now, most have probably seen the video from Ben Simmons stating he was denied entry at the Crown Casino in his native Melbourne, Australia. Simmons and a group of friends were checked and denied, while the one member of his crew that was Caucasian was allowed to go in.
This led Simmons to claim he was a victim of racial profiling.
On Tuesday, the Philadelphia 76ers star doubled down on his original comments by mentioning that he is very passionate about equality and the need to speak out in its favor.
The Crown Casino was not going to sit back and let their name get slandered, so they immediately released a statement denying that the incident had anything to do with racial profiling.
The establishment stated Simmons was asked for his identification and when he gave it, was permitted entry. The casino states they do things like this to people who they believe looks to be under the age of 25. This is to ensure that nobody under the age of 18 enters the casino floor.
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“Crown’s internal security policy requires our security officers to check identification of those persons they believe to be under the age of 25, this is an enhanced safeguard to ensure that no one under the age of 18 is permitted entry to the Casino Floor as required by Law,” a Crown spokeswoman said.
“The group subsequently provided identification and were permitted entry.”
As this point, this entire thing becomes a “he said, she said” story, but the accusation doesn’t look good on Crown Casino seeing as how Simmons is widely popular in Australia and worldwide.
