Posted on 10/04/2017 7:47:58 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
Mesquite, Nevada (CNN)He seemed so ordinary, just another house-hunting retiree, when he strolled with his girlfriend into the sales office of the Sun City development in late 2014. The agents had just what Stephen Craig Paddock was looking for -- a 2,000-square-foot, two-bedroom stucco rambler on a cul-de-sac.
Other houses might offer bigger floor plans, but the one on Babbling Brook Court had two big selling points: a commanding hilltop view and, perhaps most importantly, privacy. Neighbors lived to the left and right, but none behind the home. Paddock quickly said he'd take it.
He stood about 6-foot-4 but came across as "low key and relaxed, a good guy," one of the real estate agents recalled, speaking on condition of anonymity. Balding and paunchy, Paddock was the opposite of flashy. On his application, he said his income came from "gambling." He said he gambled about $1 million a year.
And he paid cash for the house, the agents said -- $369,022.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
He played high-roller video poker. Probably a higher payout to keep the little ladies happy while their hubbies dropped major money on the card table. He was particular on what machines he played from what I’ve read.
Also $100/hand or higher table poker. This guy lived numbers and looked at gambling like a job so it follows he counted cards. He was good at it and good at hiding it by losing to the house once in a while to keep the house happy. Dare I say a house shill to keep the rollers playing and losing to him a little more often than they lose to the house. He was kicking back to somebody. That’s my take. But I don’t think his ‘job’ had much to do with the shooting.
The article would tell you he and his family bought a place in 1992 and sold it in 2004 for $3.4M. Almost the top of the bubble. Probably made 3x his initial investment, maybe 4x. So there’s $2M (to split with family) on one transaction.
Video poker is unique in that you can make or find a little strategy card before you ever sit down that will tell you how to play almost any hand you see. For a lot of the games, you are indeed in the 99+% range.
Here’s the sheet for basic video poker, for example:
https://wizardofodds.com/games/video-poker/strategy/jacks-or-better/9-6/simple/ (”simple”)
https://wizardofodds.com/games/video-poker/strategy/jacks-or-better/9-6/intermediate/ (”intermediate”)
Video poker is absolutely the very best game to play if you want to get a lot of “comps”. Nobody’s going to throw you out for “card counting”; you can sit at a machine for hours and nobody cares; the math of something being a 99+% game means that you don’t see long extended winning streaks or losing streaks. The “comp” is based on how many hands you play, not whether you win or lose.
It’s impossible to make money playing video poker.
A gambler making that kind of income is either playing poker or blackjack (or possibly one of the Asian table games I’ve never understood).
If he’s making that money playing blackjack, he’s a card counter.
If he’s making that money playing poker, he has to be staked by someone.
“Video poker is unique in that you can make or find a little strategy card before you ever sit down that will tell you how to play almost any hand you see. “
I’ve played a few games and saw what I read in an article. VP games are just fancy slot machines with pre-determined payouts.
“Also $100/hand or higher table poker. This guy lived numbers and looked at gambling like a job so it follows he counted cards. “
Do you have any basis for that statement?
He would sit in front of them for hours, often wagering more than $100 a hand
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/04/us/stephen-paddock-gambling.html
“He was a math guy,” Eric added. “He could tell you off the top of his head what the odds were down to a tenth of a percent on whatever machine he was playing. He studied it like it was a Ph.D. thing. It was not silly gambling. It was work.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/04/us/stephen-paddock-gambling.html
Why do the casinos have games where the players can come out ahead?
“It’s because there are so many bad players,” Shackleford said. “For every skilled player, there are probably 100 lousy players. They subsidize the skilled players.”
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/stephen-paddock-motive-las-vegas-gunman-gambling-habits/
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