So the way it works is if you win a large amount of money (say a $15,000 jackpot on $5 video poker), the casino gives you a tax form and reports the winnings to the IRS.
So a money launder could take $100,000 cash into the casino, gamble for a while, and collect documentation that he “won” $90,000. That gets reported to the IRS as income even though the gambler actually lost $10,000.
I agree with Ann Coulter. There is no way someone made a multi-million dollar annual income on video poker. The tiny number of professional video poker gamblers report incomes of around $80,000 and would love to make more except they can’t because there aren’t enough games/machines with over 100% payout.
In the absence of any proof otherwise, money laundering is probably the most logical scenario - Arms dealing, drugs?? He was involved in two of the most likely ways to launder money, real estate and gambling. Added to that, he worked for the IRS and also did accounting, so he would know the ropes in hiding paper trails. He owned planes, necessary in either arms dealing or transporting drugs. Granted none of this gives a motive, just explains source of income. Read up on how to launder money through real estate and gambling - far better than through a business where you have to provide detailed receipts of cost doing business that match a IRS profile for that particular type of business. Go in with a million - lose 100000 - turn in chips - get 1099 W2g for the IRS - deduct losses from “winnings” - pay taxes on balance - presto - clean money