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 ...
No, I don’t think that’s it. The only lawsuit I’ve read about was a 2012 “slip and fall” lawsuit against a different casino, and several articles have said it went to arbitration and the arbitrator ruled against him so he got nothing.
One article said he got a couple of million dollars from selling a building, but ofc we don’t know yet what his “net” income was after expenses and paying (possibly) other investors.
We will have to see if he really had much success in his real estate investing, or if that was a cover/front for his other financial activities.
Let’s hope the investigation is thorough and honest. Is that possible? Is it still the Clinton/Bush/Obama FBI?? (of course it is) ..... has Wray been able to make any inroads on restoring the FBI????
I used to work for compuware and would occasionally go to corporate headquarters in Detroit. After the day was done, I’d go to Greektown and watch people play roulette for HOURS. It fascinates me for some reason. I don’t play, but I love to watch the psychology of what is going on.
I played roulette a little bit in Reno back in the 80’s. I had a guaranteed system. I couldn’t lose. I eventually found out my system actually had a name. It is called “the long slow grind”.
Fact is, the ONLY reason I ever gambled was to win. It was and is not fun to me. And if the reason you are playing is to win, you need to stop. Right now.
Most draw poker machines today are Double Bonus or Double Double Bonus, where they pay a big amount on certain high combos. The downside is that lesser combos like 1 pair, or 2 pairs pay less. The odds even out in the long run compared to traditional Jacks or Better, but the large variability is more exciting (and more psychologically addicting).
I don't know how he does it but he wins and he loses as if it's no big thing to him. It's more like a recreational sport for he and his wife.
He's always talking about building up points and getting free dinners, free night stays and even occasional free trips to Vegas.........
I guess he has some sort of a points card that he puts in the poker machines that records all the bets he makes which earn him the points..
I see many misperceptions about gambling in this thread.
If he were a professional gambler worth a grain of salt, there would be definitive answers right now. Since not, he was probably not.
I’m leaning toward an government informant / agent. Now tell us how he got his money.
This article and the cageyness of the LE press briefings lead me to believe they don’t know and are beating the bush with
I’ll be darned,I didn’t know that there were casinos in Detroit.
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Well, there is the entertainment factor to consider about gambling. Many people find gambling a lot of fun. If someone can play all night, loose 80-90 bucks but have a blast, is that any worse than paying $150 (or much more) to watch a 2 hour Rolling Stones concert?
There's one or two across the river in Windsor....
I’ll be darned——thanks for the info.
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Nah I don’t gamble. I have maybe put 20 bucks total in slots in my entire life, and found it boring, and also missed my 20 bucks after the 5 minutes of not fun I had spending it.
I like to play card games, but only for fun with firends, no money involved.
But like I said I do like to go to the casino for the seafood buffet, and I have always found it curious as to why there are so many senior citizens at the machines. They just spend and smoke non-stop. Although I think they may have ended smoking in some casinos now.
Somewhere I read that he might have made out more than 100 percent because he factored in all the freebies they gave him on free rooms and travel. If he got close to 100 percent back AND got large blocks of hotel living paid for, he wasn’t doing badly.
I think people can play those slots for quite a while and not lose a lot - or feeling like they are losing a lot.
The most fascinating thing I find about casinos is that, for the gamblers, money ceases being money. Someone who may buy brand X of peas because it’s a nickel less a can, will drop a hundred bucks on “black” on a roulette wheel without batting an eye.
The only other legitimate form of business that is as even close to efficient at pulling the maximum amount of money out of people in the shortest amount of time for the least value is credit card interest.
It wasn’t just the monetary winnings he got.
There were other perks for being a regular customer and one who won quite often.
His hotel rooms were often paid for by the hotel and free food as well.
He got to at least 100% by gaming the hotels too but it is not a real occupation unless there is a passion to it to do all the work.
Looks like a lot of work for not much reward unless there was another motive IE: laundering.
He does not seem like a guy that has moral convictions that would persuade him from doing this sort of activity.
Great way to continually launder money....
It would be but I wonder if the IRS monitors this. If someone was constantly buying 30K in chips and then a few hours later cashing in 28 to 31K worth of chips it should be a big red flag.
Over the years I’ve known two people who claimed they had some super system and made money off machines in Vegas. Both turned out to be using that as the lie to cover illegal income they had from other things. I figure that’s the case with the shooter, too.
maybe he was a hitman. Who knows?
The $50,000 payout would be 400 to 1 for accomplishing an outcome that happens one time in 40,000. Not a good bet.
I haven't studied video poker but I did analyze the antique slot machine belonging to a friend. He complained that he never won anything.
We opened up the machine and recorded the symbols on each reel. I wrote a computer program to calculate the weighted payout per spin. Not surprisingly the payout turned out to be 75%, which is absolutely terrible.
My guess is that this would have been the type of machine one would find in a Nevada gas station or some other place where people would be unlikely to spend much time on the machine.
For the owner of the machine, the benefit would have been 25 cents for every dollar played on the machine. Nice work if you can get it.
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