Where did the Las Vegas Mass Murderer's Money Come From?

Gun Watch ^ | 6 October, 2017 | Dean Weingarten

[marktwain]

One of the puzzles about the mass murderer in Las Vegas is the source of his money.

His brother characterizes him as "very wealthy" and that "$100,000 is no big deal".

His real estate holdings holdings have been estimated as worth several millions of dollars.

He paid cash for his latest real estate, and gambled up to a million dollars a year, according to a real estate agent who dealt with him. From the dailymail.co.uk:

The 64-year-old, who opened fire slaughtering 58 people at a country music festival at the weekend, bought his 2,000 sq ft home in Mesquite, Nevada in 2014.

Real estate agents said Paddock told them his income came from gambling and decided quickly that he wanted to take the house because of its privacy and commanding hilltop view. He then paid for the two-bedroom $369,022 property in cash.

His brother says he was well known at lots of casinos, and they "comped" (that is gave) him lots of valuable things, such as hotel rooms and various services, to keep him coming back. From nbcnews.com:

There were 16 Currency Transaction Reports, or CTRs, filed for Paddock in recent weeks. The Treasury Department and the IRS mandate that casinos file the reports for "each transaction in currency involving cash-in and cash-out of more than $10,000 in a gaming day."

The reports don't show whether Paddock won or lost or both on the days in question. They do show that on same days there were multiple transactions.

A source familiar with the investigation told NBC News that Paddock was a frequent player "with the highest status" at Caesars Entertainment properties in Las Vegas.

Mathematically, it is highly unlikely that he "earned" a million or more a year in income by gambling. It is possible to make a lot of money gambling... if you own the casino or control the venue.

There are no indications the mass  killer owned the casino or had his own high stakes private games. In private games he could use skill to bring in large amounts of untraced cash.

Casinos do not keep "comping' people who consistently take large amounts of money out of their holdings. They go to a lot of trouble to identify people who do this, known as "card counters" and to ban them from casinos.

It is likely the mass killer lost tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, maybe more. That leads us back to the question. Where did the money come from?

Could the mass killer be a real estate investment whiz, someone who was just lucky in creating an income of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars a year?

Not impossible, but not likely.

It appears the mass killer has not worked a regular job since the 1980's. Where does his wealth come from? Thirty years of high living, international travel, and massive gambling in casinos. He was an accountant, a talented one, it appears, from the people who hired him when he was a young adult.

Perhaps his wealth has been overstated.

Perhaps we have only seen the tip of the iceberg, and there are uncounted millions more.

There are many unconventional sources of wealth that could be laundered through casino gambling. Here are a few. Those with imagination can think of others.

1. He was a source of intelligence for a government or governments, who paid in cash.

2. He installed a money trap into an early computer program, and it feeds him one cent per transaction from a number of financial institutions.

3. He was blackmailing one or more wealthy people, at a rate low enough to be sustainable.

4. He was involved in the drug trade.

5. He found one of the many "lost gold mines", and kept it secret.

6. He was a talented con man, and used the casinos to launder his take.

7. He was a talented player of the "liability lottery", where people sue to make hundreds of thousands of dollars in false claims. (this one seems unlikely because he lost a "slip and fall" lawsuit against Comopolitan Hotel).  Those transactions would not be in cash.

Maybe he was just a lucky investor who kept hitting the jackpot. 

It could be, but that is not the way to bet.

©2017 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

Gun Watch

[marktwain]

He seems to have had an enormous supply of cash.

Could it have been from real estate? Seems unlikely.

Gambling? Not in Casinos.

[humblegunner]

Where did the Las Vegas Mass Murderer's Money Come From?

Blogging?

[Mount Athos]

Why do you say it is unlikely to make money from real estate?
Perhaps he got the original money from somewhere else, some criminal activity. But he could have multiplied it with luck or skill in real estate market

[SMARTY]

Gamblers are great at ‘moving money’

[mazda77]

How about The Money Store? Or maybe he was the one holding onto the Obamamoney stash?

[marktwain]

Why do you say it is unlikely to make money from real estate?
Perhaps he got the original money from somewhere else, some criminal activity. But he could have multiplied it with luck or skill in real estate market.

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You can make a lot of money on real estate. But to do it to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, in cash, is highly unlikely.

We have not seen that level of real estate transactions as being recorded for him. Could be, we just have not seen it.

On the other hand, paying cash for real estate is another decent way to launder money.

[SaxxonWoods]

Treetop Flyer or pot grow investor.

[blueunicorn6]

Hmmmmmm.....

Let’s see.......

Owned and flew small airplanes......

Seemed to live near the border with Mexico.....

Always had lots of money, but no steady job.....

I’ve got it!

He was a used car salesman!

[CondorFlight]

Arms dealer.

Vegas is a great place to launder money, saying you won it at gambling.

[SaxxonWoods]

No it’s not. The money has to be in a bank first, which means it has already been laundered.

You can’t buy real estate with actual cash. Red flag city.

[SaxxonWoods]

Your suggestion and mine go hand in hand.

[BeadCounter]

If he smuggled drugs from Mexico, via his planes, I would suspect he would have been a gun-runner to cartels in Mexico but he seemed to accumulate guns though this is an open question.

Rifle he bought on same day of hotel check-in is missing, that out of the 30 in his hotel room(s): http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/10/vegas-killer-stephen-paddock-bought-33-guns-one-year-600-rifle-purchased-way-vegas-missing/

So, this is curious. Could be anywhere at that.

[NEMDF]

WOW, HG, almost lost part of my lunch onto my monitor and keyboard.

[DungeonMaster]

Fast and Furious type gun running.

[marktwain]

Arms dealer.

---

Arms dealer seems highly unlikely, as he resorted to “bump feed” stocks instead of real full auto weapons.

Real arms dealers tend to have close connections with governments, and operate out of third world countries.

The whole “arms dealers” meme is mostly a made up boggieman from the left.

[BeadCounter]

“Arms dealer.

Vegas is a great place to launder money, saying you won it at gambling.”

And this is worth investigating, at the moment, it looks like he hoarded weapons but there might be something out there that shows he ran weapons to Mexico.

Rifle missing he bought day of hotel-check-in: http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2017/10/vegas-killer-stephen-paddock-bought-33-guns-one-year-600-rifle-purchased-way-vegas-missing/

They will find something, if this pans out.

[NEMDF]

If he was lucky/smart in real estate, he could have made some decent money at that. I don’t recall seeing that he was ever married (or divorced!), or ever had children. That would have saved him thousands of dollars by the time he was 64. Also, didn’t he work for the government (IRS?) at one time? That job probably paid 3X what it was worth, and provided a huge pension after 2 or 3 years on the job. Maybe his bank robber dad left him some cash under a rock in the desert?

[hoosiermama]

Human smuggling.Sex trade? ..... It was Nevada after all

[Oldeconomybuyer]

8. He was dealer of illegal weapons.

[workerbee]

He was an accountant, a talented one,

Huh. Have you seen the movie The Accountant? Wouldn't that be an interesting twist to all this?