A former Empire City casino employee came out with accusations Tuesday, claiming the promotions department that is being investigated has been plagued by corruption and fraud.

The worker, who uses the alias Mary, has been employed by the embattled casino at Yonkers Raceway for nearly a year.

"I've seen them rigged, I've seen papers being filled out with their family or friends names on it and know that's what they were doing,? she said in an exclusive interview with News 12 Hudson Valley.

According to Mary, several workers in the promotion and marketing departments would hand-pick the winners in what were supposed to be random drawings, handing large cash prizes to friends, relatives and high rollers who would then pay them kickbacks.

Mary says she threatened to report the fraudulent practices last year, but she was fired.

The woman adds these scams happened 90 percent of the time she spent at Empire City, potentially involving more than $100,000.

"I believe that the owners of the establishment, the general manager had no knowledge of what was going on," she says. "They were totally blind to what was happening."

The casino officials, however, began examining the casino's practices and going over two years worth of giveaways after it was reported that a $350,000 promotion called ?Play Off Your Mortgage? had been rigged.

On Aug. 25, the computers in the video slot machines that read players? cards and register them to win contests malfunctioned due to a bug in the system. As a crowd of 4,000 gamblers became agitated, workers panicked and allegedly started handing out checks to known high rollers, including four checks for $10,000 each.

"I?ve seen it where a certain supervisor came running back and showed the money and how much she got back from a person, also heard them tell the person they were going to be the winner at a certain time," Mary says.

Commenting on these allegations, Raceway general manager Bob Galterio said Tuesday that if the casino employees were doing something criminal in nature, authorities in charge of the probe will get to the bottom of this.

In the meantime, the former employee says she is willing to cooperate with the authorities investigating the case.

Empire City gamblers say $350K promotion was fixed