Knowing that boyfriend Salim Mat Ung had a nasty gambling addiction, Susy Therrien insisted on a joint bank account requiring two signatures - hers and his - to try to shield Ung from temptation but, more important, to protect their nest egg.

When, in the early morning of Sept. 30, Ung confessed to sneaking off to the Gatineau casino without her, Therrien was upset but not terribly surprised; he'd lied before about the addiction that had cost him a job and a home. He had left more than $100,000 at casino tables and in the pockets of loansharks.

But what he told her next still has Therrien reeling with disbelief and anger. To fuel that frenzied night of gambling, he withdrew $16,000 from their joint bank account - on his signature alone - from a National Bank of Canada branch within the casino.

"How could this have happened? There are two signatures required. When we go to other branches, two signatures are required," Therrien said during an interview at the couple's modest but bright apartment in Notre dame de Grâce.

Now the couple has hired a lawyer to try to get the money back from the bank.

On Sept. 29, Ung said, he went six times to the National Bank's casino branch, each time receiving $2,000 or $3,000 from tellers on his signature alone, a claim partially supported by bank documents.

"When you gamble, especially when you lose, your mind is totally lost," Ung said. "All you want to do is get money to go back (to the table)."

Ung added that he tried to find loansharks on the gaming floor before testing his luck at the bank.

Sick over the loss of the money, Therrien complained to their bank branch in Montreal and, within a week or so, met with a bank investigator. Reading yesterday from notes of that meeting, Therrien recounted how the inspector contended that Ung had committed a fraud on the bank and that she had been party to it because she was with him at the casino branch on Sept. 29.

Therrien says she had been with him at the casino a day earlier - when they had jointly withdrawn $1,000 - but on the 29th, she and friends were touring other Gatineau and Ottawa sites.

She and Ung, an unemployed textile cutting-room supervisor, were also asked by the investigator about the origins of the money in the account.

On this, the couple is evasive, saying yesterday that it came from various sources including family. It was to pay Therrien's tuition and perhaps cover a down payment on a home, they say.

"I don't know if we will ever get that money back but at least, at the very least, I'd like some apologies," said Therrien, a 25-year-old college student, who sought help from Viva Consulting, a Montreal West counselling firm run by gambling critic Sol Boxenbaum.

Surely at a casino - frequented by avid if not addicted gamblers - banks should be especially vigilant when dispensing money, the couple and Boxenbaum said.

"They did not do their job," said Ung, who contends he didn't even show tellers identification, just a slip of paper bearing his account number. Loansharks insist on solid identification such as social insurance numbers or Canadian citizenship cards, he noted.

The National Bank, which operates staffed branches and bank machines at Quebec's three casinos, is investigating and will not comment on the matter, bank spokesman Denis Dubé said Friday.

Boxenbaum, who put the couple in contact with a law firm now pursuing the matter with the bank, said the bank simply didn't fulfill its obligations and is attempting to shift focus by putting the couple "on trial."

Ung "took the money from the cashier at the bank to the tables. They have videos that can show that because casinos keep videos of everything," Boxenbaum said.

While the bank might contend that the couple profited from the money, "I say only the bank and casino profited," Boxenbaum said.

Ung, who says he hasn't gambled since Sept. 29, has resumed therapy to address his addiction. He is also taking anti-depressants, worried about finding another job, worried about his relationship.

"We argue every day, me and Susy, about this."