Posted on 10/11/2017 6:54:01 PM PDT by Rummyfan
Now the media are just taunting us with their tall tales about Stephen Paddock, the alleged Las Vegas shooter. Reputedly serious news organizations are claiming that he made a living playing video poker. That's like claiming someone made a living smoking crack.
The media are either doing PR for the gambling industry or they don't want anyone considering the possibility that Paddock was using gambling to launder money.
NBC News reports, with a straight face: "Las Vegas gunman earned millions as a gambler." A Los Angeles Times article is headlined, "In the solitary world of video poker, Stephen Paddock knew how to win." The story says that Paddock's gambling "was at least a steady income over a period of years."
I don't know all the ins and outs of Paddock's life, but that's a lie.
How do reporters imagine casino owners make a living? Any ideas on how all those glorious lobbies, lights, pools and fountains are paid for? How do they think Sheldon Adelson and Steve Wynn became billionaires if gambling is a winning proposition for people like Paddock -- and therefore, by definition, a losing proposition for the casinos?
The media think about money the way Democrats do. They have absolutely no conception of where it originates. Those casino owners sure are generous! reporters think to themselves. Economist Thomas Sowell is always ridiculing journalists for not understanding basic economics. It turns out, they don't understand the spreadsheet of a lemonade stand.
(Excerpt) Read more at anncoulter.com ...
And it’s not even regular poker. It’s video poker, which is even more rigged than your average casino.
NBC?? Do they still have a broadcasting licence??? Sheesh.
Well done, Anne.
Here’s the problem. The guy reported income to the IRS from gambling. IRS tax returns are the ultimate evidence of income, used to borrow for real estate loans and lines of credit.
Until someone can produce hard evidence that Paddock made the money some other way, the existing evidence is that he made it as he reported, improbability notwithstanding.
A bank or even the government has to accept that evidence IF that’s all the evidence there is.
One report was that he made $5 million last year from gambling (all kinds, including video poker I’d assume).
Oh, and he was (in his mind) able to demonstrate that he was smarter than the rest of us, with his detailed plan.
Boring. No weapons deals, money laundering etc. Just an a##hole who tried to go out big.
“Now the media are just taunting us with their tall tales about Stephen Paddock, the alleged Las Vegas shooter. Reputedly serious news organizations are claiming that he made a living playing video poker.”
I don’t what Ann Coulter is reading but there have been articles detailing how Paddock became rich off real estate. He also gambled but that’s not how he became rich.
Here is one excerpt from nymag.com dated Oct 5
“Stephen Paddock attended Cal State Northridge, and his family said he was an accountant. According to federal records, he worked several government jobs from 1976 to 1985: as a postal worker, an IRS agent, and an auditor for the Defense Contract Audit Agency. He was employed at a predecessor to the defense contractor Lockheed Martin for three years in the late ’80s. He also owned rental properties across the country, including spots in Los Angeles and a suburb of Dallas, Texas.
Eric Paddock said he and his brother shared a real-estate business for decades, and when they sold it Stephen made about $2 million. “He’s a multimillionaire,” Eric said. “He helped me become affluent, he made me wealthy.”
According to CNN, records show Paddock purchased at least nine other houses, condos, and apartment buildings over the past few decades:
While he took an $11,000 hit on the Florida house when he sold it, the records show Paddock bought and sold another property in Reno, two homes and an apartment complex in Mesquite, Texas, and at least four other properties in California. He profited handsomely from the sale of an apartment building he owned with a former wife and other family members. The building, purchased in 1992, sold for $3.2 million in 2004.
In 2014, he paid $369,022 in cash for the home he shared with Danley in Mesquite, Nevada. He erected a mesh privacy screen around the property, and was forced to take it down after his neighbors signed a petition. He was much less private at a home he owned in Melbourne, Florida, giving a neighbor a key and telling him he could borrow tools if he kept an eye on the house during the long stretches when he was out of town.”
The media suck.
I was just watching an MSM interview with the maintenance guy who was shot at.
He was trying to carefully give a moment-by-moment account of what happened, when the media nitwit interrupted him to ask him a bunch of ‘feelz’ questions: How did you stay calm? Do you feel lucky to be alive? Don’t you owe your life to Jesus Campos?
The guy in that article says in his best year he made $135,000. Paddock supposedly reported a $5 million profit for 2015.
It's easy. Start with a large fortune.
Think money laundering. It may look to some people that you're cycling through that $20k 25x per night when you're actually cycling through $500k in gun or drug money, taking 98.4% while you get everything comp'ed. Clean money out the back end!
I believe the point Ann is referring to is the claim that he made 5 million last year (?) in gambling alone. Thank you for the other info.
That story is 18 years old. Things have changed, plus this guy was playing quarter machines, not $100 per hand machines. AC is correct. If you think Paddock or anyone can make millions playing Video Poker, a beach-front property awaits you in Nevada.
“It’s video poker, which is even more rigged than your average casino.”
“Real” video poker machines aren’t rigged. They use pretty good random number generators to create the deck and they’re not intentionally weighed against the player. This assumes, of course, that they’re following gaming laws. I’m sure they are since it’s be stupid to pass up the piles of money they rake in legally. If a player would play a long period of time by the book, they’d nearly break even.
You might be thinking of those poker and video slot machines that lurk in rooms in small, local bars. Those are weighed against the player ... The operator sets a definitive payout cycle and max payout. It maintains all money in and out and insures that the machine never pays out too much. A player wins by sheer luck. If a player would play one of these a long period of time, they’d lose everything since the payout percentage and max payout are not based on random events.
Video poker in Vegas (as well as slots) would be a fairly straightforward way to launder a lot of money I’d think. As someone else mentioned, who cares if you lose 2 or 3 percent of your large bankroll when your goal is to have clean money at the end of the process.
Impress his GF? Are you kidding? He did not love her and treated her like dirt in public.
You don’t know what she was reading? What? She told you what she was reading. Good grief.
You are most welcome.
True...but the entire relationship may have been based in his impressing her. I don’t think he loved her, but could not stand the humiliation of not being able to afford her.
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