Arelia Margarita Taveras, a former lawyer, is filing a lawsuit against six casinos in New Jersey and one in Las Vegas. Taveras, a New Yorker, who had a successful law practice and represented victims' families in both the World Trade Center attacks and the Flight 587 crash, lost over $1 million gambling.

Arelia Magnita Taveras begun gambling in 2003, hoping to relax. Soon she became a real addict and in her lawsuit Taveras is accusing the casinos representatives that they failed to notice she is a compulsive gambler and to restrain her.

Taveras is suing Resorts Atlantic City, Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino, Trump Taj Mahal Casino Resort, the Tropicana Casino Resort, the Showboat Casino Hotel, Bally's Atlantic City, as well as the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas. Taveras told Associated Press she used to gamble four or five straight days without sleeping. 

Before her gambling problems, Taveras was making $500,000 a year and in 2000 the New York Daily News named her one of "21 New Yorkers to Watch in the 21st Century."

But since she started gambling, Taveras lost her home, her practice, her parents’ home and she faces a laundry list of criminal charges filed by the Queens DA for bilking four clients out of $99,142.

But AP reports that her chances to win the lawsuit are small, as is very hard to prove that the casinos indeed failed to notice she had a problem.