I find it funny that the article headline is "Charger found in Las Vegas gunman's hotel room – but it DOESN'T match his phones" but further down they mention the key card access, the keycard access(which could be nothing) is bigger news in my mind then the phone charger.

Just last month My friend and I stayed in a room in Atlantic City, I went to plug in my phone(An Android) behind the night table and there was an iPhone charger plugged in to the wall. If i never went to use that outlet i would have never noticed, it is quite easy for this to have been left behind by a previous guest/Paddock not notice it/or did and simply left it.

I think I originally got amazon prime to replace all the chargers I leave on the road.

On another note I received a call from an AP reporter looking for high limit VP/advantage players to interview. Spoke with her for about a half hour and gave her some leads.

I think the 58/59 count is whether Paddock is included. Semantics error.

Not unlike "worst mass shooting in American history" is an error. Give USA Today credit for using the phrase 'modern American history' as the body count at Wounded Knee alone was at least 250.

You don't earn comps on losing money. You earn them on having a high average bet for long periods of time.

From the article: "Law enforcement are also examining Paddock's finances. IRS records show that Paddock was a successful gambler, earning at least $5 million in 2015. Some of that could be from other investments, but most of it was from gambling, officials say."

What almost certainly happened was this: gambling wins and losses are reported in different parts of your tax returns. The tax code explicitly prohibits you from reporting just your net dollar figure...even if you live in a State that allows you to deduct 100% of your losses from your wins, you're still required to report your total winnings and total losses separately. Casinos will have accurate records of all action from any high-stakes player more or less down to the dollar, and anyone playing those stakes would be foolish not to request a detailed breakdown of his gameplay for tax reporting purposes (unless he likes being audited.) His tax return probably reported something like $5M in winnings / $5.25M in losses. Guessing that some dopey official prob had no idea what he was even looking at -- or some dopey CNBC reporter misunderstood -- and assumed $5M was net profit. From what's been reported about this guy so far, there's 0% chance he was a 7-figure winner.

TLDR: But how much did he lose?

I think people are too focused on whether he was a winning player or not. Most likely, he was independently wealthy, then played video poker well enough to get comps and bonuses to get close enough to break even. Maybe he won a little, maybe he lost a little. My guess is he lost maybe like 30-50k/yr, but that's not much when you also rack up tons of comps and are also wealthy. The reported 5M he won was almost definitely gross 5m wins and they didn't mention the gross losses he deducted on his taxes. If he netted that much, casinos would be banning him. I think laundering money accusations are misplaced with the realities of how high stakes video poker works. You can gross tons of money pretty easily, but the net is pretty close to breakeven for the best players and the comps push you over to a marginal winner if you're a careful pro that does their homework on promos, payouts, progressive jackpots, etc, or a marginal loser if you're a reasonably studious rec player.

"The piece of paper found in shooters room "not a note," says McMahill. It had numbers on it that may have been range calculations."

Hmmmmmm......

$5 million from gambling in Vegas? This guy is looking more and more like a Marc Turi character gone bad. A lot of weapons deals to non-State actors are done through multiple layers of dealers, consulting firms, LLCs, etc. The $$ + arsenal + military-grade planning & dry-runs would seem to fit (but again, who tf knows at this point).

If you're contracted/have the connect to put together weapons deals for certain groups in the Philippines, for example, you might want to launder the $$ when you bring the proceeds back home vs. declaring openly what you do for a living. Casino gambling, buying lots of properties through off-shore LLCs or cash transactions, etc.

Thanks for clearing the tax situation, and I think you made a reasonable assumption. The only thing else I could imagine if the 5 mil is really the net win is that he cracked some major jackpot in 2015. But they write about him as if he was a consistent big winner over the years in video poker, and that's just not possible, right? This is probably what happened:

The 5 mil from gambling isn't what was reported but is now said as fact. 5 mil income, some of it cold have been video poker. Even if 5 mil winnings doesn't mean losses were figured in. He was a rich guy from real estate who liked to gamble. He's bound to rack up huge winnings. Probably not net.

yeah, I didn't see the posts by Monorail and Tenx5. Good posts

I've been following this pretty closely since I live just 10 minutes from where it happened. .. and decided to come here assuming someone would know more about whether or not this guy could actually be a consistent long term winner in this game as I originally assumed it was impossible.

Is there anybody who knows more about this game that could give better details as to whether there are people who play it professionally and actually win? And if so, explain from where they derive their edge.

Also, this is the law now as far as US intelligence agencies sharing of info re: NSA intercepts (which is basically just about everything). They're going to be able to sort through raw data/track down just about any forms of communication of this guy, from his house(s), hotel rooms he stayed, uploads and downloads, etc.

Even if he's using burner phones/different emails accounts, pretty great chance they're going to piece it all together.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/12/u...ions.html?_r=0

And btw the Casinos could probably clear that up if they wanted, but won't.

Thanks, this is exactly right, except this is usually not a state tax thing, but the IRS specifically. The IRS requires gamblers to file a W-2G tax form whenever a jackpot, generally $1200 or more, is won. And it's not like you can hide chips in your pocket, the machine knows you won and you won't be paid until the tax forms are signed. Being a tax form, every one gets reported to the IRS as gambling winnings. The offsetting losses are NOT reported. The IRS sees the gross win only, not the net. That's why every casino will prepare a win/loss statement for carded (tracked) players... although not an official tax document or an audited statement, it's a gambler's best evidence to present to the IRS that there were offsetting losses. So you can say to the IRS, you already know about the $5,000 jackpot I hit, but the casino shows my net win for the year was only $1,000 so I'm going to deduct $4,000.

On your annual 1040, you don't have much choice but to report all the jackpots as gambling winnings, since the IRS has all your W-2G's. And gambling winnings are up in the "Income" section with an explanation. The offsetting losses don't have a space on the 1040 form, they are listed on a different form with itemized deductions.

Someone who puts, say, $100k or more through a machine per day, mostly at $125 per bet, can lose $5,000 net, and still rack up piles of W2G's representing perhaps $60,000 of "gambling income" the IRS knows about (the rest is in small individual wins below $1200).

Correct, but perhaps they see a benefit in letting the public believe "you too can become a professional video-poker player in our casino and earn millions [just don't murder anyone while there.]"

Of course, the casino and authorities could clear up almost all the speculation in this thread [including an ISIS connection] by releasing surveillance footage that everyone knows they have of the hallway outside his room, the parking garage, his check-in, and likely everywhere he walked on the property short of a bathroom and whether he was associating with someone while doing it.

Why have they not?

Obviously the FBI has their hands on the surveillance footage, nothing will get released without their consent.

I'm curious, as I don't think I've seen this anywhere: is there any word on just how much his "infamous" bank-robber dad stole, and how much of it was recovered when he was arrested? All I've seen is that the dad was on the FBI's Most Wanted list, but I don't think I've seen any dollar-figure associated with it. It's been reported that the shooter made out very well on some real estate flipping (I've seen a few reports of a couple Million on properties that have been ID'd so far)...still his wealth and stakes played seem rather high for someone with an unremarkable work history.

Actually, as has been discussed here a few times over the years, there aren't cameras in casino hotel hallways. Casinos complain about the cost, but a lawyer in that article suggests that the main concern "is lawsuits. If casinos set up hallway cameras but ignored the footage, guests might sue for negligence". In 2005 Raymer was robbed in a Bellagio hallway, only to learn that there were no cameras there.

(EDIT: TIL both robbers were apparently sentenced to 3-12 yrs in jail, and 1 of them died last month at 47; google for details, don't think i can post link to PFA here)

Afaik there are a few pros that do this. My hometown casino had a machine that paid out like 99.5% with perfect play, but one day of the week had a 5x multiplier for comps, which pushed it over to like a 100.3% machine. I think it worked out to like $50/hr or so with some reasonable assumptions. I gave it a go along with another poker player, and some dude was traveling in to play this machine and he had a notepad and was taking lots of notes on his play. That's one way some people can make a living at it. Some other casinos will offer sweet giveaways like free trips and drawings for cars etc that can be factored in to your roi. They have since changed the promo to exclude video poker machines from the 5x promo at our casino. Other places have progressive jackpots on a royal, that if it gets high enough, it pushes it over to +ev with perfect play. I don't think there's much money in this profession after you factor in all the b.s. Lots of travel, huge bankroll requirements and ridiculous variance (I lost like 8k in 2 hours chasing $50/hr; you're basically guaranteed to bleed away money until you hit the 1 in 40000 royal flush). If you like to travel and gamble, you can get pretty good bang for your buck though, because of all the free hotels you would get. My guess is the guy was in the latter group. Just a good amateur that tried to find good machines and promos but didn't care too much if he was -ev, because he enjoyed a comped $500 sushi meal and a hotel room, and was retired with nothing else to do.

JFC, are you still talking about an ISIS connection?! Do you actually believe that there is a government conspiracy to keep any evidence of such a connection a secret from the general public? How about taking off the tin foil hat and joining the rest of us in the real world.

I don't play, but I've been studying video poker while looking for ways to diversify my gambling portfolio. There are professional gamblers who rely mainly on video poker. It has been reported that Paddock was know to some video poker pros.

They rely on comps, player points, sufficiently high progressive jackpots, and casino errors to turn a game from slightly -EV to +EV.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Dancer?wprov=sfla1

Bob Dancer is probably the best-known 'noted video poker authority'

Keep in mind that what is described as 'winning' VP figures in the value of comps.

True, history shows our gov't wouldn't think of lying or withholding information from its citizens.

Don't be an idiot. If there was even the slightest reason to suspect a connection to ISIS, the government would go out of its way to publicize it. In fact, there's a greater probability that they'd fake a connection to ISIS than there is that they'd cover one up.

Repeating from above ...

This thread is to discuss this horrific event, its impact on Vegas and yourself. When new information becomes available, feel free to post/discuss it here.

Derailing it with gun control or politics not directly associated to the event will be met with a temp ban.

Pure speculation about the shooter, his motives (etc.), based upon no evidence or credible information will not be allowed in this thread. There are several other places on the internet where that stuff can be posted/discussed.

Thank you for your cooperation.