Posted on 10/09/2017 11:45:19 AM PDT by Drew68
Las Vegas (CNN) -- He was a nocturnal creature who gambled all night and slept all day.
He took Valium at times for anxiousness, and had the doctor who prescribed it to him on retainer.
He wagered up to a million dollars a night, but wandered around glitzy Las Vegas casinos in sweatpants and flip-flops, and carried his own drink into the high rollers' area because he didn't want to tip the waitresses too much.
This was Stephen Paddock as he saw himself four years before he opened fire on a crowd of concertgoers, killing at least 58 people in the worst mass shooting in modern American history.
The details are contained in a 97-page court deposition obtained exclusively by CNN. Paddock was deposed October 29, 2013 as part of a civil lawsuit against the Cosmopolitan Hotel, where he slipped and fell on a walkway in 2011.
What otherwise would have been a mundane proceeding offers fresh details about Paddock's life and habits -- for the first time -- from the killer's own mouth. The document has been turned over to the FBI, according to sources.
Paddock's testimony offers little insight into what could have prompted last week's attack. He said that he had no mental health issues, no history of addiction and no criminal record.
He said he was prescribed Valium "for anxiousness" by Nevada internist Steven P. Winkler. It was unclear how often he took the drug, but he estimated that he had 10 or 15 pills remaining in a bottle of 60 that were prescribed a year and a half earlier.
Rage, aggressiveness and irritability are among the possible side effects of taking diazepam -- better known as Valium, according to a manufacturer of the drug. It is not known when Paddock last took the drug.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
A high stakes gambler for whom millions of dollars is no big deal, but he took time out from his busy gambling schedule to sue the casino for a few thousand dollars of medical bills?
Does not compute.
They focus on the drugs, but that’s not what got my attention.
He regularly gambled a million a night, but he would carry his own drink in to avoid tipping servers.
I never met a bad tipper who was a good person.
The fact that you gamble in the millions doesn’t make you a bad person. To many, it’s just a form of entertainment. Some people who do it are very charitable too. I’ve even met people who don’t gamble and who trouble making ends meet who are fairly giving when it comes to gratuities. So what does it say about someone’s self absorbed greed and obsession with controlling his own gains and losses that he avoids being put in a situation where he might have to share just a little?
If it seems absurd to draw an equivalence to shooting up a crowd, it does, on it’s face. But I’m talking about something deeper. Being so concerned with yourself and so contemptuous of others.
“Do you mean to tell me that CNN obtained a court document before the FBI did? Something seriously wrong here.”
That does suggest shoddy investigation, if CNN is correct in saying that it obtained the transcript “exclusively.”
Well, we have gambling addiction. So, there is some mental illness, unless he used the gambling to money launder money that he was getting illegally.
More than once I have read that his favorite form of gambling was video poker. Can anyone win by playing these type machines over an extended period of time? Louisiana’s gambling former governor Edwin Edwards always referred to video poker as a suckers game. Play video poker for the long haul and you will lose all. I wonder if Paddock’s real business was money laundering for someone else.
Why does everyone assume the psycho mass murderer was telling the truth when he said he would gamble $1 million a night?
Why does everyone assume the psycho mass murderer was telling the truth when he said he would gamble $1 million a night?
I read that video poker had the second best odds for the gambler (compared to the house). The best odds were black jack. I supposed video poker would include black jack too?
At any rate, playing as often as he did, he would certainly lose money in the long run. His brother said that with the comps he received from the casinos, he ended up earning some.
Gambling is a terrible way to launder money unless you are willing to accept unfavorable exchange rates.
lol
Granted, when you are not gambling large amounts infrequently, but rather in small increments frequently over time, the loses are reduced to an increasingly predictable percentage. However, those loses are built into the system. The house always wins on the whole.
I assume that he is exaggerating. There may have been nights he gambled a million a night, but I doubt it was typical.
Over time the guy is probably losing. But what if he amasses 1 million dollars illegally annually. You launder through your gambling. The guy takes home 90 cents on the dollar. Why would the casinos comp this guy if he constantly won money from them?
From the article: “Each time I push the button, it will range from $100 to $1,350,” he said.
He’d have to push the button between 52 to 767 times an hour for 14 hours to bet a million dollars. Or between 740 and 10,740 times during the whole night.
I saw somewhere that the house has a 1 % edge? Over time you lose.
I sure would like to know if he'd been on a losing streak. It could explain some things.
“But none of that makes me believe he was actually betting $1 million a night.”
I’d be more interested to see his average nightly winnings/losses. The casinos, I’m sure, have this on a nice little spreadsheet but I doubt we’ll ever see that.
It seems he was obsessed with squeezing every penny out of the casinos, which is why he opened bottles of copped booze that he didn't drink and still as of yet hadn't paid the legal fees incurred in his lawsuit.
Black Jack requires human interaction which I don't think Paddock cared much for.
And the expectation of tipping.
Allegedly one of the hotels he frequented started scaling back on the freebies for this very reason.
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