Posted on 10/05/2017 8:42:44 AM PDT by PPSman
The Mandalay Bay shooter, Stephen Paddock, was apparently a big gambler.
Various reports have it that he played the video poker machines. He would sit in front of them for hours, often wagering more than $100 a hand, reports The New York Times
The top machines at Mandalay Bay, where Paddock often played, pay out 99.17 percent, or $99.17 for every $100 wagered.
You aren't living off your gamblings with that kind of losing payout.
Paddock's brother, Eric, seems to think...
(Excerpt) Read more at economicpolicyjournal.com ...
Those ten hand machines can be good to play.
Still, hard to imagine Vegas allowing anyone to get rich from gambling there.
Casinos aren’t there to make you rich. Yes, someone gets rich, but it ain’t you. He got his money elsewhere.
Well, you can certainly win over the short run but not over the long run. The more you gamble on that type of machine they likelier it is you are going to lose. But, you won't lose a lot on a single big hit so it's easier to control your losses.
I heard the brother also say that he would play Slots all day. They are the worst payout at the casino. Even if he meant video poker you don’t consistently win at that. Far from it. The only game that sometimes sees the Casino get beat is Baccarat and that’s only occasionally.
Agreed.
He may have made money on balance, but big money? Doubtful.
If the casino’s allowed people to win big consistently, they would soon be out of business.
The cliche ‘the house always wins’ is more than just a cliche.
Nobody is a professional gambler playing video blackjack. They only way I have ever seen that work is poker (and sports gambling), not games where you are essentially playing against the house.
Make money as a professional gambler, or launder money as a “professional gambler”
Minimum payout percentages for slots used to be controlled by the Nevada Gaming Commission. AFAIK it still is.
Most professional gamblers play 'skill' games such as blackjack or poker.
But buy $10,000 in tokens, play the slots for a few hours, then cash in $9,000 of chips, and you've just taken dirty cash and turned it into clean income.
And if nobody ever won they would also be out of business. It appears this video poker he was playing had better odds than blackjack, where I believe the house has about a 3% advantage. This is a bit offset by the fact that you can play a lot more hands of video poker in an hour than you can blackjack at the tables - and the more you play the more likely the odds will catch up with you.
Yup, the money laundering angle has to be looked at very hard. That was evident from the start. Feds had better not b.s. this investigation Comey-style !!!!!!!!!
Make money as a professional gambler, or launder money as a “professional gambler”
Most like it was: make your money elsewhere and waste your time gambling.
This is the really suspicious part of this weird case. Where did this failed government employee get millions of dollars? Gambling is not a credible answer, but the IRS can check and see what he claimed his winnings were.
Right.
That’s why I distinguished between winning big consistently, and winning once in a while.
I don’t know crap about gambling, but don’t the casinos tend to kick out people who are consistent winners, e.g., card counters at blackjack? Would he really have been able to make a good living off gambling in the big casinos, or would he have to lose a lot of money for them to keep welcoming him back over the long term?
I think the money laundering angle sounds very plausible, though I don’t know about any of this stuff (not my world).
Nobody wins against a casino. If you win by doing something that should be legal like card counting, you’re thrown out and banned.
A spokeswoman for the Office of Personnel Management told The Associated Press that Paddock then worked as an agent for the IRS for six years until 1984. Paddock then was employed as an auditor focused on defense contracts for a little over a year, federal personnel records showed.
3.2 million is chump change for a serious gambler and would NOT have lasted for 'years'...
They only way I have ever seen that work is poker (and sports gambling),
...
Yep. The only way to win as a gambler is to go against other gamblers. Casinos have a license to steal.
Irresponsible, but possible, I guess.
Plus he had income from real estate and apartments.
Gambling was his passion but not necessarily his main means of support.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.