If Paddock wasn’t making money on video poker — and he wasn’t — why would he be cycling millions of dollars through a casino, turning every dollar into, at best, 99 cents?
Money laundering.
Paddock receives, $1M illegally, say as an arms dealer. He can’t just deposit the $1M in a bank. Too many red flags. However, if he gambles it away in Vegas he pumps $1M into the casino and gets back about 90 cents on the dollar. Now he’s got $900K ‘laundered’ thru gambling that can be declared on his taxes and deposited, minus the cut to Uncle Sam.
Or maybe he isn’t a gun dealer and launders money for someone else, effectively acting as a middle man.
If I were in that line of work, I would keep a very low profile and have lots of personal protection.
As far as I know, all of the guns purchased by Paddock were done so legally and traceable to his name. Is that the way a person involved in illegal gun sales normally procures his weapons?
If Paddock was laundering money, he was probably just taking a cut. He wasn’t involved in the underlying illegal activity, most likely.
Bingo.
Gambling was money laundering.
But what was the money source? The real one?