Is Phau also the guy they were dubbing "the godfather"? Some people at Bellagio the other week were talking about how he so much pull they let him smoke while playing in Ivey's room. Granted, Ivey's room is at Aria so who knows... but I've never heard a story about someone smoking in Bobby's Room or Ivey's room.

Do you have a better plan to end this illegal wagering?

Yes, legalize it - end of problem, unless you want to live through other people.

How do you propose we end illegal murder? Legalize it of course. Problem solved.....um...NO! Get real and be serious for a moment please.

Get real and be serious for a moment please, bets between friends is not the same thing as murder.

The only issue here is that these friends have a lot of money.

Ignoring dollar values, should my friend and I be reprimanded for making a bet on a football game over the poker table?

Illegal gambling and murder are on two completely different ends of the morality and aggression spectrum. Why would you expect them to have the same "solution" to the problem?

Gambling is voluntary and doesn't infringe on anyone's rights. There is no reason for it to be illegal because there is no victim. The easiest way to fix "illegal gambling" is to legalize it and stop treating it like a crime to begin with. Just like what should be done with every victimless crime.

Murder is an act of aggression against another human, which obviously infringes on their rights. They aren't even remotely in the same realm.

I know governments have brainwashed us hard, but not all illegal things are bad.

The key difference is consent. Consent makes the difference between rape and a bit of rumpy-pumpy on a Saturday afternoon.

Also your argument can apply the other way. Forcibly imprisoning someone and confiscating their computer equipment is generally illegal and punishable unless you legalise it by giving the police some mentally-collectivist law to enforce whereby it becomes a society-wide decision what we are all going to allow each other to do consensually on an inter-personal level.

Knows how to use Wikipedia.

You mean like the quote below, being run out of Macau or dealing with 50 mil bets?

I generally dig all your posts and the FBI could easily be wrong but it's not the usual 2+2 BS (you should say "NVG BS" when you really want to burn someone) when quoting an FBI agent. That should at least count as vague credibility.

I was going to go for the usual NVG BS and make a dumb reference to the chopstick heist until I read 14K were involved. I'll take the safe route and assume it's true.

In general the statements made by any government's law enforcement or prosecution wing should be taken with a grain of salt during the initial phase of a case. Is America less bad about this than some other countries, maybe, but lately I wouldn't bet on it. Law enforcement, esp in these type of high profile, organized crime type of cases or white collar stuff, is a political and public relations exercise in the beginning. Prosecutors begin by laying the ground work in the media, and any edge they can get, they try to take.

On a side note, a close friend who is like a minor (younger) host with a CET property told me that this was definitely not coordinated with upper level Caesars management. The request for business equipment and the like would not be unusual for very wealthy, esp foreign, guests. The set up of a temporary "office", while not common, wouldn't be out of the ordinary. When you are worth north of 100m, it's not like your interests just get put on hold while you take a little Vegas trip.

If you logically think about it, any advance contact with Caesars management, particularly hosts, whose income is directly linked to how much their customers gamble and lose, would compromise the security of the entire investigation. Most likely, the FBI's entire investigation would have started because of an informant or inside tipster, with an axe to grind, at Caesars, and they then bum rushed the villas and seized everything with no notice. Guys with this much money have too many people on the "payroll", to risk anything that might compromise arrests or evidence gathering.

Kind of joking, but think of all the goodies the 20 dollar trick or ten dollars to the maid gets you. Now imagine the veil of protection 50k per hand at baccarat drops over you.

Just did a little online searching after my last post. So they are saying the tech guys tipped them. I wonder if they went to their bosses first with their concerns. Also wondering what a hotel's legal responsibility in these type of cases is. Are they obligated to go to authorities if they have questions about a guest's conduct?

Of course, the entire thing could be made up to protect the identity of a confidential informant, so who really knows. I just find it hard to believe that casinos and hotels are doing surveillance on their guests, esp the super high players, with an eye toward compromising them with the authorities. considering how complicated, nebulous, and confusing international gambling law is, how would they even broach the subject without a team of lawyers?

Kick them off your property for booking? Sure, I get that. Help to initiate a federal investigation into a powerful, well connected, foreign national? That seems like a stretch.

So by this standard, if Stevie Cohen was staying at Caesars, requested some computers so he could stay in touch with the market, a tech support employee could contact FBI/SEC with suspicions about insider trading?

This whole situation is pretty sketchy and maybe the government is concocting the whole "how they got caught" story.

fwiw, I've seen smoking in Ivey's room before. It was during Bobby Baldwin's game and several people were smoking cigars

-David Chesnoff (the Lawyer) defends all the wealthy clients in Vegas (Ivey's Divorce, Paris Hilton's cocaine possession charge etc). There was/is a show on network TV within the last few years that is based on him.

-The article I read made it seem that the jet was held as collateral in lieu of the $2.5 million dollar bail, not in addition to.

-Law Enforcement waiting until the World Cup was over to make the arrest is pretty standard. They like to rack up the charges and make the net as wide as possible before shutting down big operations.

-I agree that this will be more clear when more details are released but I think there is a good chance it will get even more sensational and some other people may get swept up along with it (right or wrong). It may be hard to explain young Americans winning tens of millions of dollars playing poker in a foreign country versus alleged international gang members (if that is true). They may be in for quite the questioning.

With that said, it was probably a bad move for Robl to intertwine himself in this post arrest. Chessnoff is smart enough to realize this and may be the reason he stepped out in front of it releasing that information. Doesn't make sense making that public otherwise.

Actually Wikipedia claims they are the third largest which conflicts with Tom's information.

crazy

In Tom Hall I trust!! Tom Hall > US Government 7 days a week and twice on Sundays!!

The government is concerned about money laundering with Sports betting, but at same time these casinos allow 1K-5K or whatever to run.

This all just makes no sense.

Tom Hall please correct me if i am wrong but isn't Paul Phua one of the biggest VIP junket operators in Macau with tables at Steve Wynn's Macao casino and does business with the Sands ?

as 70% of Macau's revenue comes from VIP junket's it could really affect a casino's bottomline having someone like Paul behind bars awaiting trial.


but then again my facts could be mistaken.

The Feds did this to the Silk Road suspect. Right prior to the bail hearing, they introduced several potential murder-for-hire charges without giving the defense time to prepare. This caused his bail to be denied. Then they never indicted him for those and referred to them as something like "uncharged crimes" in the indictment. There is a separate Maryland murder-for-hire charge but it may not move forward either.

You should most certainly be arrested. I'm not saying it's the same thing as murder. I don't think you should be sentenced to death for placing illegal wagers. 6 months to a year behind bars should be sufficient.

Richard Yong was convicted during the National Kidney Foundation Scandal. He moved around his assets and tried to leave the country.

Yong was declared bankrupt because of the civil suit against him and others on the NKF board. Yet a few years later he is playing in the biggest poker games in the world. I find it hard to believe a guy who loot a charity would be involved in other shady stuff.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationa...gapore_scandal

http://eresources.nlb.gov.sg/infoped...01_120748.html



A little background stuff on the arrests:
http://heavy.com/news/2014/07/wei-se...fbi-world-cup/

All laundering of criminal cash starts in banks and it couldn't occur without corrupt banks and bankers. A few years ago most Western govts changed the definition of money laundering to include any transaction involving criminal proceeds. So Pstars etc were accused of money-laundering simply because their profits were alleged to be from illegal gambling. A kid who steals a push bike and sells it can be charged with money laundering.

Obv the various LEAs can then shout about all their money-laundering convictions and the corrupt banks and bankers can carry out their old-style money-laundering in peace apart from the odd corporate fine now and then.

I mean I understand hyperbole to make a point, but A) didn't seem like ur post was hyperbolic (my bad)

and B) someone followed up almost immediately confirming the idea that a $300 wager needs to be confirmed and even then u need to have play at the casino etc

u may be a huge sharp but I've witnessed friends who never play in pit n have no history at casino throw down 2K+ on a MLB game without a second glance.

also LOLOL at needing to use hyperbole to point out that it's gonna be hard to get 50mil down at a casino.

Robl's declaration in support of Phua: