gambling – The Burning Platform

American Idols

Originally posted at Dispatches from Reality, by Scipio Eruditus. dfreality.substack.com

“The similarities between sport fandom and organized religion are striking. Consider the vocabulary associated with both: faith, DEVOTION, worship, ritual, dedication, sacrifice, commitment, spirit, prayer, suffering, festival, and celebration.”

— Daniel Wann, Sports Psychologist

Since the earliest days of man, contests of athletic prowess, politics, and religion have been inextricably linked. This relationship goes way beyond surface level comparisons or similarities in linguistic terms. Sporting events — whether it be the Greek Olympics, the Roman Coliseums, or the Mayan ballgame — were not purely for entertainment purposes alone: they served as vital rituals to enforce societal order and cohesion. A ritual is quite simply an ordered process in which specific acts are repeated in a specific manner, whether secular or religious in nature. When rulers held these sporting spectacles, they served not just as a useful distraction, but also as a tacit display of the sovereign’s wealth and power.

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WE WIN FOR THE MOST SIN

I’m so proud. I already live in the state with the highest gasoline taxes in the nation and the highest toll rates in the nation. Now I find out my state of PA collects the most sin taxes in the nation. And my new governor doesn’t think we’re taxed nearly enough. He wants to double my income tax rates. Not to be outdone, the new communist mayor of Philly wants to inflict a sugar tax on the masses which will double the price of every beverage with sugar sold in Philly.

Don’t you love how these left wing politicians roll out gambling and taxes that inordinately hurt the poorest people the most. Poor people are much more likely to gamble, smoke and drink soda than rich people because they are dumb. Then they vote for the very same politicians who are screwing them. So it goes.

In total, states collected more than $32 billion by taxing tobacco-related purchases, alcohol consumption and gambling in 2014.

“As political pressure mounts to keep income and property taxes low, state legislatures have often turned to sin taxes to generate more revenue,” writes HowMuch.net’s Rebecca Lawrence. She said states have raised taxes on tobacco products 111 times between 2000 to 2015.

Wyoming registered the lowest 2014 tax tally at $26 million, with almost all of it from tobacco. As a result, you can barely see it on the map.

When it comes to alcohol, Texas is the only state to generate more than $1 billion in taxes. In fact, that number dwarfs the $452 million reaped by Florida in the second spot.

Pentagon Employees Caught Using Government Credit Cards on Gambling & Escorts…Staff Given “Stern Warning”

Guest Post by Michael Krieger

Last month, we learned that DEA agents were caught attending sex parties with prostitutes paid for by drug cartels. No one was fired. We also learned that the DEA agents who left a California student in a cell without food or water for five days until he was forced to drink his own urine in order to survive, were given a slap on the wrist. Finally, we heard about how TSA screeners in Denver were intentionally manipulating the naked body scanners in order to allow a particular agent to sexually molest male passengers. While the offenders were fired, no criminal charges were filed, and the TSA refuses to release their names. All of this was revealed in the last month alone.

Well, we can now add another to the list. In the latest example of abuse by unaccountable feds, we learn that Pentagon employees have been caught using their government credit cards on gambling and escorts, amongst other things. Their punishment? A “stern warning.”

Politico reports that:

A Defense Department audit has found that a number of Pentagon employees used their government credit cards to gamble and pay for “adult entertainment” — findings that are expected to lead department officials to issue stern new warnings.

The audit of “Government Travel Charge Transactions” by the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General, which is to be made public in coming weeks, found that both civilian and military employees used the credit cards at casinos and for escort services and other adult activities — in Las Vegas and Atlantic City.

A Pentagon official briefed on some of the findings stressed that the federal government did not necessarily pay the charges; holders of the cards pay their own bills and then submit receipts to be reimbursed for expenses related to their government business.

Wait a minute, “the federal government did not necessarily pay the charges?” How about you go ahead and find out for sure. It’d be nice to know if taxpayer money is paying to pad Sheldon Adelson and the Moonlight Bunny Ranch’s profit margins.

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WHY GAMBLE WHEN THE STOCK MARKET IS A SURE THING?

The Real Reason Macau’s Casinos Are Suddenly Empty

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 01/03/2015 11:13 -0500

A trip to the high-roller tables in Macau or Las Vegas strip casinos over the holidays revealed an unexpected, eerie (and terrifying if one is a bondholder in said casino) sight: empty chairs as far as the eye can see. Indeed, as Bloomberg reports, “Macau’s casinos just recorded their worst year, ending a decade of expansion that turned the former Portuguese enclave into the world’s biggest gambling hub. More tough times are ahead. Casino revenue in the city fell 2.6 percent to 351.5 billion patacas ($44 billion) in 2014, after a record 30.4 percent monthly drop in December, according to figures from Macau’s Gaming Inspection and Coordination Bureau today. Analysts projected a 2 percent annual decline, based on the median of nine estimates in a Bloomberg News survey.”

Casino revenue fell to 23.3 billion patacas in December for a seventh straight month of decline and the biggest drop since Macau began recording monthly figures in 2005. That compared with a median estimate of a 30 percent drop in a Bloomberg News survey of 11 analysts.

Macau had posted its smallest annual casino revenue gain of 9.7 percent in 2009, after it began yearly records in 2002.

So what are the stated reasons? Chief among them: a crackdown on corruption by China’s government, coupled with background checks on Macau gamblers.

Chinese President Xi Jinping’s bid to catch “tigers and flies” in an anti-corruption drive and weaker economic growth means Macau may face shrinking revenue until at least mid-2015, when new resorts open. The crackdown has deterred high rollers who account for two-thirds of Macau’s casino receipts, and wiped out about $73 billion in market value of companies including Wynn Macau Ltd. and SJM Holdings Ltd. last year.

“The VIP heyday is over,” said Philip Tulk, an analyst at Standard Chartered Plc in Hong Kong. “The anti-corruption crackdown doesn’t look to be a short-term phenomenon,” with funds flows between the mainland and Macau being much more closely scrutinized, he said.

Yes, there is concerns over corruption and embezzlement, which were capped when Macau implemented background checks for VIP gamblers, but a far bigger concern for Macau has been its abuse as a money-laundering mecca. “Macau’s government has been curbing money flows to the territory over concern that illegal funds are being taken out of the mainland. It is restricting the use of China UnionPay Co.’s debit cards and its hand-held card swipers at casinos. Further clampdowns are expected with the help of banks.”

To be sure, the crackdown on Macau “hot-money” laundering meant that it was Las Vegas that emerged as a preferred money-laundering spot for Chinese billionaires. As we wrote previously, “as Macau has seen growth collapse, Las Vegas has seen Baccarat (the preferred game of China’s rich) surge. In May, as Macau growth slumped, Las Vegas Baccarat surged over 85%.
While slots (the staple indicator of the 99% in America) continues to decline (-4.4% in May), it seems rich foreigners are finding creative new ways to wash their money out of China.Macau had been the money-laundering center for Chinese elite: “You don’t actually buy anything,” said Lai, standing near a half-empty display case containing a messy spread of watches and jewellery. “We just help people get money out of China so they can gamble more.”

And yet, subsequent to the brief burst in Las Vegas Baccarat revenues in the summer, this too money-laundering alternative appears to have fizzled out, suggesting there is more to it than merely a corruption crackdown and money laundering.

That something is simple: as noted repeatedly on these pages, even as China’s economy has been careening dangerously to a hard-landing, its stock market has soared over the past six months.

Why? Well, in addition to the PBOC quietly launching both a lite version of QE in the summer and cutting rates in November, something far simpler happened: China’s habitual – and filthy rich – gamblers decided to move from point A to point B, namely from Macau to trading desks.

From Bloomberg:

While mainland regulators have eased regulations on investors using margin debt to buy shares, Macau’s government has tightened visa rules for Chinese visitors and cracked down on the use of UnionPay debit cards to bypass mainland currency controls. President Xi Jinping, who has spearheaded the anti-corruption campaign, is expected to visit Macau this month.

The bottom line:

“Customers who used to wager on casino tables are probably now sitting at home betting on stocks,” said Tai Hui, Hong Kong-based chief Asia market strategist at JPMorgan Asset Management. “Investors are levering up on margin trading, or ‘using a small knife to cut a large tree.’”

And there you have it: why gamble in a casino when one can gamble in the just as rigged stock market?

As for tumbling casino stocks, all Macau needs to do is wait for the Shanghai Composite to crash as the latest equity bubble pops, and all those gamblers who made the track from Point A to Point B hoping to get rich quick, rush back to where they came from.

That, or perhaps it is time for UBS to rent out its massive, world’s-biggest, trading floor in Stamford to Wynn, or Sands or Galaxy or MGM. It’s not like UBS uses it anyway.

Then again, probably not, because so much snarky commentary would be avoided if finally none other than Chinese billionaires were manning the trading terminals to the biggest rigged casino ever.

CHRISTIE’S PLAN TO REVITALIZE ATLANTIC CITY WORKING TO PERFECTION

I sure hope Fat Boy Christie can work his crony capitalistic magic on the whole country as our next President Blimp. His brilliant plan to revive the putrid shithole of Atlantic City by taking taxpayer money and handing it to mega-corporation casinos has worked wonders. If his plan is any more successful there won’t be a casino left in Atlantic City by the end of 2015.

I love watching the union drones protesting the loss of their jobs as the Republican governor pisses away hundreds of millions on the $2.5 billion Revel albatross. It’s as if no one in New Jersey has any common sense, mathematical ability or balls to tell the truth. So I’ll do it.

PA and Delaware have opened dozens of casinos in the last five years. Why would someone from either of those states travel to the dangerous ghetto shithole of Atlantic City to lose their money when they can do it 15 minutes from their house? They stopped going to AC. Shockingly, this resulted in a plunge in AC gambling revenues and profits.

Then Christie and the politician bozos passed online gambling in New Jersey. You can go into debt by gambling away money you don’t have in the comfort of your own living room. Why take your life into your hands by entering the Atlantic City kill zone to lose your welfare paycheck? Shockingly, this has resulted in even less revenue for the gambling meccas in AC.

And guess what? The dumbass middle and lower income clientele who dump their cash into slot machines have run out of cash. They have either no jobs or shit jobs, while their cost to feed, house, and warm themselves has skyrocketed. The dupes and suckers don’t have a pot to piss in as their extended unemployment benefits expire and food stamps get cut.

The signs of collapse are everywhere if your eyes are open. Maybe Fat Boy Christie will come to the rescue again with more New Jersey taxpayer cash to save a few mega-corps and their union drone employees.

PA and Delaware will experience the same thing in the near future. You can’t get a jackpot out of a stone.

Trump Plaza To Close In September As Atlantic City Implosion Claims Fourth Casino

Submitted by Tyler Durden on 07/12/2014 10:41 -0400

The Atlantic City casino industry implosion continues. Following the second, and final, bankruptcy of AC’s “state of the art” Revel Casino a month ago, as well as the shuttering of Atlantic Club hotel Casino and the Showboat hotel casino, the grim corporate reaper has come for one of the most prominent boardwalk casinos of all: Trump Plaza.

The casino which opened in 1984 as a JV between Donald Trump and Harrah’s AC, was for a long time the centerpiece of Donald Trump’s one-time Atlantic City empire, which however promptly escalated into a series of sequential bankruptcies, chipping away at Trump’s reputation and business model, as one after another of Trump’s properties sought Chapter 11 protection.

The final punch came in February 2013 when Trump Plaza was sold to a California company for $20 million – the cheapest ever transaction for an Atlantic City casino, and a fitting testament to the death of this one-time east coast gambling mecca. It was here, however, where a very bored Carl Icahn, once again spread his wrinkled activist wings when in April 2013, as senior lender for the mortgage, Icahn declined to approve the sale for the proposed price and the deal was put on hold.

Unfortunately for Icahn, this is one he may have let go, because as the Philadelphia Inquirer reports, Trump Plaza has decided not to bother with continuing the sale process and will instead shutter permanently. “Trump Plaza Hotel & Casino will shut its doors for good in mid-September, according to state officials who were briefed Friday by lawyers for the casino.”

“I believe Sept. 16 is the targeted closure date that we were told,” said Assemblyman Vince Mazzeo (D., Atlantic). Mazzeo said he and State Sen. Jim Whelan (D., Atlantic) received a phone call late Friday afternoon from a Trump Plaza lawyer. Atlantic County officials also were briefed, he said.

Mazzeo said the attorney told him that Trump Plaza management plans to make a formal announcement and issue 60-day layoff notices to about 1,600 employees Monday.

“This is another blow to the casino industry here,” Mazzeo said. “With mid-September the timing of the closing, it will have a devastating impact on the local economy.”

The news will hardly come as a great surprise: there has been speculation for more than a year that Trump Plaza was on the verge of closing. “Like the Atlantic Club, Trump Plaza is one of the city’s smallest and oldest gambling halls – it opened May 26, 1984 – and had difficulty competing with the bigger casinos in town and in nearby states, including Pennsylvania.”

But while the creditors will be angry they have other sources of income; one group of people even more furious and with zero recourse are the unions. Bob McDevitt, president of Unite Here Local 54, the union that represents most casino workers, led a Boardwalk rally Wednesday to protest Showboat’s planned closing. McDevitt, who labeled Showboat’s closing “a criminal act” by Caesars Entertainment since the property was still profitable, could not be reached late Friday to comment on the latest casino to fall.

Meanwhile, the city is slowly but surely realizing that its business model is dead.

Whelan, a former Atlantic City mayor, expressed his displeasure Friday night. “I go from depressed and sad to being angry,” he said. “When these casinos close, people lose their jobs and their careers. It’s a very sad situation.”

Employees at Trump Plaza had not been notified Friday of the planned closure, but slot attendant Stan Jelesnianski, who said he has worked there for 21 years, said employees had been worried “for a long time.”

“Business has been slow,” he said.

According to May 2014 monthly revenues from the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement, the latest monthly data available, Trump Plaza ranked last among the 11 casinos in total revenue, making $5.2 million. Of that total, it generated about $4.6 million from slots, down 19.8 percent from May 2013. And it took in $660,666 from table games, a decrease of 45.6 percent from a year ago.

Its year-to-date total casino revenue of $21.9 million was down 26.7 percent from the same period a year ago.

Charles Pinkett, a Boardwalk rolling-chair operator, said the casino has seemed to be on life support for a while. “The people have been talking about how there’s no room service,” he said.

The only good news perhaps is that yet another icon of the Trump “empire” – built entirely on other people’s money and junk bonds – is being dismantled. After this, there is just one more left…

Mark and Alice Aronson, dining outside, said they were surprised and saddened to hear another casino was on the way out. Alice Aronson, a local therapist, said she had clients from Showboat who were dealing with the pain of the likely layoffs.

“It’s a shame,” she said. “This is a good place. I heard Donald Trump is not involved anymore. I thought maybe he’d fight for it. It seems, one by one, they’re not taking care of their employees.”

Trump Plaza’s closing would leave one Trump-brand casino in Atlantic City – the Trump Taj Mahal, between Resorts Casino Atlantic City and the soon-to-close Showboat.

We give the Trump Taj 6-9 months before it too joins its peers in the liquidation docket, and the name Trump will no longer appear on the boardwalk for the first time in over three decades. In the meantime, those curious to track the demolition of the Atlantic City gaming empire in real time, can do so at the New Jersey WARN Notice website.

THEY’RE COMING FOR YOUR SUPERBOWL POOL MONEY

The Federal, State and local government leeches are in desperate need of more blood to fund their bloated bureaucracies, gold plated pensions, vote bribing entitlement schemes, and overall crony machinery. The State of PA is effectively insolvent if they used GAAP accounting . So is virtually every state and municipality in the country. The PA government pension liability alone will drive the state into bankruptcy. Rather than address the real problem with honesty and courage, the weasel politicians and bureaucrats solution is to defer, delay, tax and pretend. The weasels increase the gas tax, tolls, fees, and anything else they control to pay for their incompetence.

Earlier in the week, I heard another story about PA expanding gambling to fill their gaping budget hole. The Phila Inquirer described the situation:

As budget discussions unfold over the next few months, it is widely expected that the GOP-controlled House and Senate, along with the Corbett administration, will seriously consider a proposal to expand lottery gambling and, possibly, one to legalize online gambling. Both measures could mean hundreds of millions in annual tax revenue at a time when the state is in the red. The administration says Pennsylvania could be facing at least a $1.2 billion budget gap for the fiscal year that begins July 1.

These bozos already have a $1.2 billion budget shortage, COMPLETELY due to the mandatory government pension payments required to fund the retirements of government drones who retire at 50 years old. Instead of addressing that issue, they milk the cows for more revenue. The morons think they can generate another $200 million from keno and on-line gambling. Of course, all the other states have the same plan. You can’t get blood from a stone. The real people living in real houses across the state are making less real money than they did in 1989. But the clowns in Harrisburg think they can extract another $200 million per year from these people. None of these lowlife politicians mention the FACT that it is mostly senior citizens, the poor and the ignorant who are lonely, bored, and stupid enough to gamble. PA is taxing the poor and stupid to fund their pensions.

And now they are coming for your Superbowl pool. The Pennsylvania State Police are out to get you.

Two government drone politicians crafted Act 92 to, among other things, allow nonprofit clubs to run pools, as long as it is structured so any wager is an entry fee, not a bet on a specific outcome, with the house taking the other side. Wagers are capped at $20. But State Police Commissioner Frank Noonan said Act 92 specifically says it cannot conflict with federal law, and Noonan said placing any kind of wager on sports violates the federal Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act. State Police had its legal team review Act 92, and found the federal law doesn’t leave any wiggle room for Super Bowl or March Madness pools, Noonan said.

We are seeing the heavy hand of government getting heavier by the day. Every State and municipality will be growing increasingly desperate as their un-payable entitlement promises come due. Everyone is seeing gas taxes, sales taxes, income taxes, real estate taxes, car registration fees, sewer fees, water fees, utility fees, cell phone fees, cable fees, and tolls increased. Government is bleeding us to death. The time is coming when we say we’ve had enough.

Reduce your footprint. Drive less. Cancel services that are taxed. Work for cash under the table. Barter. Buy less stuff. Don’t ever participate in state sanctioned gambling. Starve the beast until it collapses.