The events giving rise to this lawsuit arose in January and February of 1997 * * *. During that time period, plaintiff/appellant Seigel, a Maryland resident, traveled to Atlantic City, New Jersey to gamble. While there, he wrote a number of checks to various casinos, and, in exchange, received gambling chips with which to wager. The checks were drawn on Seigel’s cash management account with defendant/appellee, which was established through Merrill Lynch’s District of Columbia offices. There were sufficient funds in the account to cover all the checks. 

   Seigel eventually gambled away all of the chips he had received for the checks. Upon returning to Maryland, Seigel discussed the status of the outstanding checks with Merrill Lynch, informing his broker of the gambling nature of the transactions, and his desire to avoid realizing the apparent losses. Merrill Lynch informed Seigel that it was possible to escape paying the checks by placing a stop payment order and liquidating his cash management account. Seigel took this advice and instructed Merrill Lynch to close his account, liquidate the assets, and not to honor any checks drawn on the account. Merrill Lynch agreed, and confirmed Seigel’s instructions.

   Many of the checks were subsequently dishonored, and are not now at issue. However, Merrill Lynch accidentally paid several of the checks totaling $143,000, despite the stop payment order and account closure. Merrill Lynch then debited Seigel’s margin account to cover the payments.

   Seigel brought suit in the District of Columbia against Merrill Lynch * * * demanding a return of the $143,000 plus interest * * *. Seigel filed a motion for summary judgment * * *. He argued that D.C. Code §16–1701 precluded enforcement of the checks as a void gambling debt, or in the alternative that New Jersey law prohibited the enforcement of the checks, and that therefore Merrill Lynch had no rights by way of subrogation as a defense to its payment over the stop payment order. Merrill Lynch made a cross-motion for summary judgment, denying the applicability of the D.C. statute or any relevant New Jersey law. It contended that it stood in the shoes of the casinos to whom valid and enforceable checks were given, and therefore the plaintiff had not suffered any actual loss as a result of the payment of the checks. On June 24, 1998, the trial court issued an order granting defendant’s motion, and dismissing the complaint. This appeal followed.

***

   We begin with an examination of the statutory scheme relating to stop payment orders, because we believe these provisions are determinative of this appeal. The relevant sections are found in the Uniform Commercial Code * * * §§4403 and 4407.

   The basic right of the depositor to stop payment on any item drawn on the depositor’s account is set forth in Section 4403(a). However, liability on the bank for payment over a stop payment order is far from automatic. On the contrary, Section 4403(c) provides: ‘‘The burden of establishing the fact and amount of loss resulting from the payment of an item contrary to a stop payment order or order to close an account is on the customer.’’

   This provision, which places the burden on the customer to show actual loss, is reinforced by the extensive rights of subrogation given to the payor bank by Section 4407. Under that section, as to the drawer or maker (that is, the depositor), the bank is subrogated both to the rights of ‘‘any holder in due course on the item’’ and to the rights of ‘‘the payee or any other holder of the item against the drawer or maker either on the item or under the transaction out of which the item arose.’’ As a leading authority on the Uniform Commercial Code has noted, this section ‘‘contemplates that the bank will use its subrogation rights primarily to defend against a suit by the customer to recover payment.’’ [Citation.]

   As applied to the facts here, then, Seigel is required to bear the burden of establishing that he in fact suffered a loss as a result of the payment of the checks. In assessing whether any such loss was actually incurred, Merrill Lynch must be treated as the subrogee of any rights of the casino payees against Seigel. As the payee of a dishonored check, the casino would have a prima facie right to recover its amount from Seigel as drawer, 3414(b), and the burden would be on Seigel to establish any defense he might assert on the instrument. 3308(b); [citation]. Seigel asserts two such defenses: duress and illegality. We turn to an examination of those defenses.

***

   The entirety of appellant’s duress argument emanates from a single sentence in his affidavit: ‘‘For years I have had [a] gambling problem.’’ If not ambiguous, the statement is conclusory. Unlike the gambler in [citation], appellant fails to produce any evidence in the record, specific or otherwise, regarding his problem and its relation to any unconscionable duress in the transactions at issue. [Citation] (describing an abusive and bizarre ‘‘marathon gambling session,’’ that included unsolicited credit increases from the casino, the existence of an alleged psychological disorder and defendant’s concomitant use of pain killers, during which the defendant lost $285,000 in little over two days) * * *. We therefore conclude that Seigel’s assertion that the checks would be unenforceable in New Jersey fails. Seigel also invokes the fact that these checks were given in order to obtain chips with which to gamble, and cites us in particular to D.C. Code * * * [which] provides that:

A thing in action, judgment, mortgage, or other security or conveyance made and executed by a person in which any part of the consideration is for money or other valuable things won by playing at any game whatsoever, or by betting on the sides or hands of persons who play, or for the reimbursement or payment of any money knowingly lent or advanced for the purpose, or lent or advanced at the time and place of the play or bet, to a person so playing or betting or who, during the play, so plays or bets, is void. 

   In substance, Seigel claims that this statute would serve as a defense if the casinos were to seek to enforce the checks in the first instance in a District of Columbia court, and therefore this same statute requires that he be entitled to affirmatively recover from Merrill Lynch the amount of the checks in a District of Columbia court, regardless of the checks’ enforceability elsewhere.

   We may assume for present purposes that this statute would prevent direct enforcement of the checks in the District of Columbia, a somewhat dubious proposition in itself given the validity of the checks where made. But that is not this case. Rather, the question is whether under the relevant provisions of the Uniform Commercial Code, Seigel has met his burden of proof to establish actual loss. We think he has not.

   As already indicated, even if payment had been stopped, the casinos could have enforced the checks in New Jersey, where the transaction was entered into. Merrill Lynch therefore, under the Code scheme, conceptually has the same right. Furthermore, even if there were a problem in asserting jurisdiction over Seigel in New Jersey, Maryland would have provided an appropriate forum for enforcing the checks. The highest Maryland court has squarely held that because there is no longer a strong public policy against gambling per se, * * * and that therefore Maryland courts will enforce gambling debts if legally incurred in a foreign jurisdiction. [Citation.] Accordingly the casinos, and hence derivatively Merrill Lynch, could enforce the checks directly against Seigel in the state of his residence—Maryland. 

*** 

   We conclude that Seigel failed to establish that he ultimately suffered any actual loss as a result of the payment of the checks by Merrill Lynch. * * *

   Affirmed.