During the past week, speculation about Strip shooter Stephen Paddock’s gambling proclivities took front and center in this saga for about two days. I’m in the rolodexes of some of the big media outlets and the calls started coming on Monday. The first TV show to air an interview with me was “CBS This Morning” and after, that the floodgates opened. I did about 25 interviews, including TV for CBS, CNN, and “Inside Edition” and print for the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, New Yorker, New York Magazine, LA Times, and London Daily Mail.
I never knew Stephen Paddock, but I might know more about his gambling profile than just about anyone outside of his closest consorts and casino employees who either hosted him or have access to his records. I’ve heard from several players who knew and played with him. I’ve heard from casino employees who’ve seen his records and results. And eerily, he was a former LVA member and a regular customer of ours. What gets out in interviews is always truncated and since the media has a limited understanding of gambling, the ideas and concepts are often poorly stated. Here’s an accounting of what I know and the conclusions that I’ve come to.
The first mentions of gambling indicated that Paddock was a “$100-per-hand poker player.” That didn’t make sense and I assumed he was a video poker player playing $25 denoms. When I asked around, no one knew the name, but once photos of Paddock became widely circulated, I began hearing from players who knew him by sight and verified that he’d played video poker for high stakes for several years at various Strip casinos. The casinos specified most often were Mandalay Bay, MGM Grand, Wynn, and Cosmopolitan (the image of Paddock on the LVA.com home page was taken by CCTV at Cosmopolitan). Given the $25 video poker tie-in, I checked vpFREE2 (an outstanding resource) and noted that Mandalay Bay’s best game at that level was 8/5 Bonus Poker. I made a mistake in early interviews indicating that the best he could have played there was a 99.17% game betting up to $125 per hand. I later learned (from current players delighting in catching me in an error) that I’d overlooked a $5 Triple Double Spin Poker option, which has a 99.58% return with the possibility of betting up to $225.
The media was hoping to find evidence of a compulsive player who’d lost his money and snapped, but that didn’t jibe with the information that was coming in. Paddock had played for too long at high levels for that to be the case. I was also getting reports that he had an intact “low 7” rating, which means a verified $1 million to $3 million in the bank, and six-figure credit lines. I was told that he was known as a player who could win or lose up to $100K on a trip. He apparently paid his markers when he lost. Accordingly, I discounted the degenerate-loser scenario.
What about the other side of the spectrum? Somewhere it was reported that Paddock had told neighbors that he was a professional gambler. Could he have been a winning player, or at least an advantage player of some type? Absolutely. I felt it was possible that he was a winner, but still unlikely. Based on my original belief that he was playing at a base return of 99.17%, it seemed more likely that he was playing the comp game – losing, but making it up in high-end givebacks. That’s an arrangement that often exists between players and casinos, where the player is satisfied with the value of the comps and the casino is winning more than the cost of those comps. The discovery of the 99.58% game made me pause on that, as the additional .41% is significant. With slot points, bounce-back cash, and VIP tournament equity, he probably could have pushed his overall return above 100%. However, I still feel it’s much more plausible that the comps were the driving factor, and almost all the knowledgeable players I’ve discussed this with concur.
Later, information began to come in about Paddock’s actual results, leaked by employees who’d peeked at his records. They show him sitting on both sides of the ledger, which also supports the fact that he might have been a winning player, since a top-level AP would probably employ methods that suppress wins and inflate losses. However, the negative balances were quite a bit higher than the positives, so again I lean toward a comp-hustling profile. Regardless, winner or comp wizard, it’s AP play and that’s the way I described it to the press. (Directly following this post is an excellent comment on this subject by Captain Jack that was originally made in another post at GWAE.)
Of course, the strangest part of this for me is the LVA connection. I didn’t even think about it at first, but after a couple days, we checked our database and sure enough, Stephen Paddock was a customer. He’d been an LVA member in the early 2000s and at that time was also buying how-to products, almost all for video poker. He bought Bob Dancer’s Video Poker for Winners tutorial software and several Dancer/Daily Video Poker Strategy Cards. He also bought The Video Poker Answer Book by John Growchowski and The Slot Expert’s Guide to Playing Slots by John Robison. He was, without question, a studied player. His most recent purchases were last year, when he bought the Tax Guide for Gamblers by Jean Scott and Marissa Chien and The Law for Gamblers by Bob Nersesian.
So you can see that I had a lot to work from, and based on all of the evidence, I conclude that Stephen Paddock was most likely a good player who played close to breakeven, but was probably losing overall and angling for comps. What’s really crazy about this is that the big-loser scenario could still be true. That’s something we won’t know for sure until his records are released, if they ever are.
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(This comment originally posted by Captain Jack and brought over from another thread.)
I’m not sure if some of you are saying this guy was not an AP in order to feel better about yourselves…but it is pretty clear at this point that this guy was an AP.
He is us.
When the narrative first broke that his brother claimed he gambled “$100 a hand at poker and sent pictures of jackpots” I started to suspect we were dealing with an AP here. As details emerged about the extensive planning and preparation he went through to pull this off I knew he was an AP. Think about it, this guy got off a few thousand more bullets than any other lone wolf mass shooter has ever before him. He wanted to raise the bar and set the mark for killing by a mass shooter. In fact, I think he probably died thinking he had killed hundreds maybe thousands. Don’t confuse this for being respect or praise for his actions. This guy was pure evil.
The clinical diagnosis that we commonly refer to as being a sociopath is Antisocial Personality Disorder and it occurs in roughly 3.8% of Americans from my research. However, in the world of Advantage Gambling I’d say it is 10-20x more prevalent. There is a natural progression towards sociopathic behavior that comes from making money in a casino environment. You’re making your money by beating inefficiencies in the casino…who in turn is making their revenue from the stupidity of the gambling masses. You begin to get a sense of superiority above your fellow casino patrons. You begin to lose empathy. You employ deception to get what you want. You become immune to taking risks. You become emotionally disconnected from the world around you. All of these are personality traits of sociopathic behavior.
I’m not sure the public is ever going to fully understand what could cause someone to do this. They will be quick to accept the narrative that this guy was a degenerate gambler who lost all his money and decided to extract revenge on Las Vegas. However, gambling addiction leads you to hate inward, not outward. Someone in their 60’s is a candidate for suicide, not mass murder. Hopefully the FBI decides to try to get inside the mind of an AP to understand how this guy could develop the personality disorder to an extreme that it would result in this. When you’re an AP, you’re an AP at every aspect of your life. Maybe seeing what it’s like to be on the extreme edge of this personality spectrum will be enough to help some AP’s take a step back and gain some serious introspection.
He is us….and it’s making me ill.
I would call this guy a value player, but not an Advantage Player.
When I first heard this story break I speculated that this guy knew of Bob Dancer or at least heard of him since Paddock was a video poker player and lived a short drive from Vegas.
Anthony, your article clarified what I thought to be true. That Paddock had been reading Bob’s work, among various other gaming authors. The gambling world is a small world. I thought he may have been a student of Bob’s in the past but I didn’t want to ask, besides Bob cleared that up recently in a podcast. In one of Bob’s articles under the Video Poker tab there is a comment from a guy named Stephen, I wonder if it was him. “Was She Talking Like a Woman or Talking Like a Man?”
I don’t know if the guy was an AP video poker player or not but after hearing that he won $5 million if it’s true or not… how many royal flushes would he have to hit to win $5 million in one year at the stakes he played at? It doesn’t make sense. It’s seems like it’s extremely difficult for even poker pros to make $5 million in one year unless they are playing at the top of the game and they have the cash to play with in such high stakes games, or they win the WSOP ME. .
I don’t believe the mainstream media narrative that Paddock acted alone, I think there is a lot to this story that is not making the headlines.
It has been reported that Paddock used his girlfriend’s players card while gambling at Mandalay Bay days prior and up to the incident. He also used her comps to get a room there. Was Paddock banned from using a MGM Resorts Mlife players club card? If so, he had a gripe against MGM properties.
Looking at the pictures of Paddock’s room that were leaked to the press I don’t see thousands of rounds of brass laying on the floor to back up your claim. You look at the picture of the floor with the brass on it and it doesn’t back up the scenario that Paddock was the lone gunman who fired off 1000’s of rounds from the 32nd floor. However only 1 picture showing one firing position was shown, 2 windows were blown out on the 32nd floor.
Those are very interesting facts and analyses related to the shooter’s gambling life. A sense of superiority developed from years of over-pampering by casinos? Loss of empathy; emotional disconnection; boredom?
What is most fear-inducing, certainly to those directly affected, is that this is, so far, unexplainable. Political or religious fanaticism? Not known about this person, and not in the target/victim base. Some severe mental derangement? Possible. Compulsions to kill seem to involve deliberate planning, and this shooter certainly went to some trouble to do his deed, scoping out other venues. That he reserved high floor rooms in other hotels overlooking outdoor arenas, not just in Las Vegas but at least one other city (Chicago), and in at least one case having never checked in, is in retrospect a clue, the possibility that he had such a compulsion brewing for a while. According to one news source, someone at MB said he had requested this particular suite this time after staying in it before. Whether that is true or not, we know that he busted out two windows to accomplish this horror. He had to know he would not survive, unless he was overcome with some grandiose delusion of invincibility. Where is his body? Will his brain be examined for something that could have severely altered his thinking? It is possible. JMHO
Say he averaged 2000 hours per year and 1000 hands per hour, that’s 2 million hands, at $125/hand (that would be five coin $25 video poker), that would be $250 million coin in. If he ran +2% through a combination of net EV and luck, he would clear $5 million net before taxes. It’s also possible the $5 million was just AGI before loss deduction, but that would seem on the low side for a heavy $25 video poker player. It’s hard to believe a guy doing that much action wouldn’t be filing schedule C, which handles losses before AGI.
Even Bob Dancer must have shook his head at the NBC Nightly News report that Stephen Paddock made $5 million playing video poker in 2015. With 1% edge it would take $500 million of action to accomplish this. Almost $10 million every week of the year! Need I say more? Utterly ridiculous! It may not be Fake News but it is definitely pathetic journalism. Whatever happened to fact checking before reporting?
There are quite a few bizarre speculations and assertions in this thread. The first one is Captain Jack’s speculation that 38-76% of advantage gamblers are sociopaths (his figures, not mine). I mean..come ON! Let’s not start spewing utter nonsense! Another piece of silliness is that some kind of conspiracy by “the mainstream media” is covering up the “fact” that there was actually more than one shooter. Yes, of course. Aliens from the planet Dweemo teleported the bullets into the park where the festival was being held.
The worst concept being put forth, though, is that his gambling had a cause-effect relationship with his murderous actions. A lot of people here (and elsewhere) are making the correlation–does-not-equal-causation error. Yes, everybody’s eyes light up (AHA!) when we find out he was a high-stakes VP player (and supposedly, a moderately skilled one). Well gawrsh golly, no WONDER! Doesn’t everybody become a mass murderer when they lose at VP? (And btw, who says he wasn’t a terrible player who made so many mistakes that he was playing at more like 96%?)
I choose Occam’s boring ol’ Razor here. The guy went (slowly or swiftly) garden-variety nuts. He lost his marbles. Went off the deep end. The cheese slid off his cracker. And thanks to the NRA, he had the means and opportunity to express his lil’ ol’ Second Amendment self in the process.
No garden variety insanity here. No political grandstanding, IMO. I didn’t shoot up a casino. Gamblers were his sociocultural group. Noisy young people maybe? There is a neuropsychological derangement, rare, whereby the person is acutely mentally tortured by noise, even just moderately loud noise like a room full of people talking and laughing, though that usually manifests early in life. Loud music and rowdy crowds make a lot of people (like me) are something I try to avoid, especially at my age. Not saying this was his condition, just continuing my thoughts about what drove him to do this.
Though seemingly ridiculous when reported at the time, could he have indeed been recruited, for a grand sum of money, by some enemy of the US to carry something like this out? Doubtful, but again, like everyone else, trying to make sense of it. Steve Wynn seems to have had some security procedures in place, such as a time limit to not be “disturbed” before some action was taken to check on things. Not a bad idea. I know Caesars does something similar when “do not disturb” hangs a long time on the door, though I don’t know if they actually enter the room. I know the maid record it for their purposes.
Hey, if you want to believe the fabricated story that you are told via the mainstream media then more power. The only thing the mainstream media can accurately report on is sports scores.
I found it difficult to believe that it would be possible to make $5 million in one year playing video poker unless hit he some kind of progressive jackpot playing video poker or a slot machine.
Isn’t it more likely that he put $25M coin-in and got $5M in W2-Gs out? A 20% return via W2-Gs is typical for many VP games. The media often conflates W2-G totals with gambling winnings, while APs only care about the net win.
The shooter’s father was a sociopath, and there is enough early evidence to suggest that he was tended towards that end of the spectrum. The AP’s that I hang with are some of the nicest people you would ever hope to know.
A guy playing at that level can easily generate $5 million in W2Gs. To the media that means he won $5 million but on the tax form you then deduct all your losses which in his case could have amounted to more than $5 million.
you forgot the weather.
CNN has just reported a deposition in which he claimed under oath to gamble a million a night, 14 hours a night, 365 days a year. I estimated $250 million for his annual coin in, so I was slightly off, the actual was about $365 million. If he was playing $25 video poker, five coins would be $125 per hand, so he averaged 8000 hands a night to get the million per night. Clearing $5 million off of $365 million in action is about a +1.4% yield. (Also, as a side note, I’m sure he filed schedule C, if you don’t know how that works, see “Tax Help for Gamblers”, a book reportedly bought by the shooter, any serious gambler needs to read it, along with “The Law for Gamblers”)
I suppose we’ll never really know the “why” here, but shouldn’t we be concentrating on the “how”? I mean, obviously the guy went nuts, by any definition of the term. Isn’t the very definition of insanity that there is no logic or reason (any more) behind a person’s thoughts/actions? Therefore, why try to find a reason for something for which there may have been no actual reason at all? And really, what good would it do to find out? He quite evidently exhibited no symptoms or behavior (aside from being, apparently, a bit of a jerk) that would suggest the act he committed.
I think we should focus on the horrible flaws in our society and political system that allow one person to accumulate a huge arsenal (and one political party to make our society hostage to gun nuttery). I’m hearing a LOT of blather from the alt-dumb-right about how we just have to put up with this because guns=freedom. Oh yeah? What about the freedom of people, like the festival attendees, to gather peaceably and have fun? Or your or my freedom to not get shot?
And parenthetically, yes, I DO believe the mainstream media, as opposed to Breitbart or Fox “News,” because they’ve done a magnificent job of telling us everything that’s known about this horrible incident. The only bias I’ve seen is in the Review-Journal, which is and always has been pretty right-wing and has expressed a lot of gun-love opinions in the last several days.
That clip from CNN sounds unbelievable and unrealistic for a sole video poker player to dump a million a night. I don’t watch CNN because the CNN spin doctors tend to distort reality way to often. I think CNN spun that news segment in order for Las Vegas damage control. Las Vegas casinos desperately need gamblers from out of town to come to Vegas or the city will feed on itself.
I agree and have been making the point to the media that the gambling wasn’t causal. But I find a lot to chew on in Captain Jack’s comment.
This is an interesting comment. The term advantage play has morphed over the years. My understanding is that it was originally coined by Steve Forte and was meant to encompass ALL forms of getting the money or whatever else was deemed to equate with profit, including cheating and comp hustling. Today, the definition of advantage play seems to be much more narrow. So I think it’s mostly semantics, but I assume the intended point is that Paddock wasn’t playing on a strictly monetary-profit level.
They can’t even get the weather right.
I appreciate Captain Jack’s comment but I think he is off target on his analysis of Paddock. An AP is a survivor of the game no matter what the game is. If this creep wanted to one-up his daddy by being a member of the FBI’s most wanted list he failed miserably. Patsy Paddock is the loser in the long run. The attack on the innocent concert goers seems like it’s an Isis style/para military coordinated type of attack with many moving parts in which a lot of information has not been divulged.
Most data I’ve seen says ~20% of the population suffers from some sort of mental illness. Most of us mentally ill are harmless to society, and some even get elected to high public office. I can’t buy into the majority of APs as sociopathic however.
As far as successful APs are concerned, I believe there are a disproportionate number that are OCPD {Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder}. I know, I have been diagnosed, and spent a lot of time in therapy to minimize the downside of this disorder. (This is not the same as Obsessive Compulsive Disorder – OCD). Attention to detail, doing things “perfectly”, “anal” personality, following rules to the letter, etc. are OCPD traits that can be quite beneficial to an AP.
In 1985 I watched the Larry Holmes/David Bey title fight from the stairs overlooking the outdoor fight at the Riviera. The reason I was there was to play the 5 cent video poker progressive bank of 6 machines on the 2nd floor at the entrance to Bingo, which was used about twice a day; the rest of the time, those machines were mostly inactive, though accessable to the public.
Video poker was fairly new and progressive machines were very new. I programmed my Atari 800 computer to play with their payouts to see the correct plays and figure out at what amount the jackpot had to be to give a positive expectation. I eventually hit that jackpot for a $2002 payout and immediately wrapped up my video poker career. It was more than a little bit boring. Figuring stuff out was the fun part. Later on I knew people who played on teams. They had pagers (pre cell phone days) and when a progressive bank’s jackpot made it to the positive expectation threshold, menbers of the team would lock up all seats at those machines and keep playing untll someone hit the jackpot.
So much for me and 30 years ago. I want someone to explain what is the point of playing a game without a positive expectation? I understand the for occasional entertainment part, and the comp/perks part making up for the loses, but if Paddock was giving $250 mil action per year, even with the machine paying out 99.58%, that leaves a deficit of over $1 Million. Are that that many perks given and is a lot of that cash or simply hotel, food, booze and limo rides?
What everyone is forgetting is what kind of bankroll is required when playing 9/6 Jacks or Better at $125 a hand. According to Video Poker for Winners if you bet $125 a hand and you get 0.5% slot club return, which I think is generous for a strip club casino in 2015, you need over $6 million bankroll. And that is for a chance of going broke 10% of the time! If the average gambler can make this calculation so can a casino. There’s no way a casino is going to give you free rooms, food, shows, etc and at the same time let you win $5 million over the year!
It’s amazing how little coverage the Equifax data breach is getting in the MSM. Everyone with a credit card now has all their private data on sale to criminals or already in their hands. The Vegas incident is horrible, but they are giving no coverage all to this other extremely bad situation. I guess that’s because the banksters who own shares of Equifax also own the MSM.
I love the article by Anthony Curtis but vehemently disagree with him that Captain Jack’s comment has any kind of merit unless “Jack” is a mental health professional or a psychologist or a criminologist–and if he is then he should identify himself as such. If I truly believed that as he says as many as roughly 80% of AP’s were pure sociopaths, I would a) never visit this website again, b) throw away every gambling instruction book I have, and c) root for casino personal to identify and expel every card counter, etc. as a public service. As of now I do not believe “Jack” and venture to guess that it’s a long walk from social ineptitude, or feeling better than others, to sociopathology.
Bob, I agree with your comments. I think the guy was a smart player with a large bankroll. In the LA Times article, one expert said that he had watched the guy play and saw him make mistakes. I think he had enough money to play fulltime and not lose too much. He was probably playing 8/5 BP at $500 per hand. Who among us can make a living doing that?
Anthony, was he a contributing member to the LVA forums?
We checked, but don’t see anything from him.
Don’t overthink it, it’s all about the money. The casinos thought the shooter had low seven figures of money, possibly some old under the table cash from his dad, they wanted it and were willing to spend money to try and get it. The shooter fit their profile of a degenerate gambler and they liked their odds of getting his money in the end. Maybe the shooter actually had the edge, if he played computer perfect continuously and never made mistakes, but few humans if any can live up to that standard in the long run. Playing video poker 14 hours a night, 365 days a year is bound to take a toll on any human.
Link to CNN article if anyone is having trouble finding it amongst all the other news:
http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/09/us/las-vegas-stephen-paddock-deposition/index.html
I am none of those professions that you listed and I feel like my comment (which was originally in a much less-traveled comment thread) is being given too much weight by its association with Anthony’s very credible analysis. My assertion that sociopathic behavior is “10-20x” more likely in the AP community was hyperbole. An exaggeration to express the point. To my knowledge, no clinical study has ever been done to measure the skew of ASP Disorder (or Autism on the broader spectrum) in the advantage player community.
However, I am a full-time professional advantage player. I tend to believe the section which Anthony felt contained some thoughts to chew on was the progression an AP may experience as they spend more time in casinos. Here is that passage again:
“You begin to get a sense of superiority above your fellow casino patrons. You begin to lose empathy. You employ deception to get what you want. You become immune to taking risks. You become emotionally disconnected from the world around you. All of these are personality traits of sociopathic behavior.”
So while I’m not a mental health professional nor a criminologist, I have experienced much of what I spoke about above and in talking with fellow full-time AP’s, many of them feel the same way. There’s a long LONG leap to go from Antisocial Personality Disorder to mass murderer and I’m not saying casino gambling led him to this end. I’m simply making a point of introspection that many AP’s may find resounding. Hopefully, those that disagree with me can not relate whatsoever because they maintain healthy levels of empathy, compassion, and honesty in their lives.
I wonder when the lawsuits from the wounded will begin.
I guess what happens in Las Vegas doesn’t stay in Las Vegas after all.
Was a note found, as was initially reported?
The 1st amendment has the rights that the founding fathers considered 1st and most important! We have puts limits on all these rights! In addition the 1st amendment is clearer than the second. We also have at various times in our history limited gun rights! This includes western towns making people hand in their guns till they left town. I support the right to possess hand guns, rifles and shotguns. Last thanksgiving I ate wild pig that my son shot. The folks that are demanded unlimited access have no logical basis for this position.
(This comment originally posted by Captain Jack)
The clinical diagnosis that we commonly refer to as being a sociopath is Antisocial Personality Disorder and it occurs in roughly 3.8% of Americans from my research. However, in the world of Advantage Gambling I’d say it is 10-20x more prevalent.
Having been around enough AP’s for the past 31 years, I would say Sociopaths, likely not. Misfits of society, without question!
What is the StDev playing video poker? This would allow us to construct a 99% confidence interval on his play for the year. Although I think a mass murderer has no problem lying in a deposition where he is likely trying to justify large damages from the fall based on his lost income from Video Poker. That amount of play seems impossible!
I read about and seen pictures of a note in the creeps room. Press conferences held by the LVPD and FBI show that their official story has more holes that Swiss cheese. I would expect things to change regarding this case. This website may offer some insight… rense.com
I’m not sure because I don’t play video poker but not all video poker games are created the same. I like playing real poker with real cards, video poker doesn’t do it for me. The guy wasn’t an AP the way I see it, he was a fucking degenerate gambler!
The mainstream media timeline regarding the Mandalay Bay/Vegas shooting has more holes than Swiss cheese. It’s been over a week and the LVPD and the FBI seem to be perplexed by the situations many moving parts. The mainstream media has done a horrible job reporting this incident in my opinion. The story keeps changing!
For Jacks or Bonus, the variance is about 20, so: 99% = +/- 2.58 x $125 x sqrt(20 x 8000 x 365) = +/- $2.5 million, so you could say in this case with 99% confidence that at least $2.5 million of his $5 million gain was due to net EV. He might have rented out his rooms or been payed to play by the casinos or received a loss rebate or marker payback rebate or any number of other options.
His EV is -1/2% according to above, given the volume of play and StDev what is the probability he could have won $5 million?
Thanks for explaining the mathemagics for Jacks or Bonus video poker Liz. Wit Nit should have been more specific asking his deviation question because one video poker game is not the same as every other video poker game on casino floors.
Anthony, can you confirm if this kids story is true?
https://forbiddenknowledgetv.net/eyewitness-report-of-shooting-at-the-tropicana-and-ny-ny/
No. There are all sorts of claims being made. I’m sure plenty is being suppressed, but this sounds pretty out there to me.
Fair enough, Captain Jack. I didn’t get the hyperbole and it seems a few others misconstrued it as well. That aside, I have no doubt you have a profound knowledge of the mental and emotional challenges advantage players face. Thanks for the reply.
I agree with Candy Wright on the noise theory. There are reports that the shooter called hotel security 3X the day before the shooting to complain about loud music in the suite below him on the 31st floor.
If you’re going to apply Occam’s razor you must take into consideration the fact that Isis has claimed responsibility on multiple occasions and they have not done that before and been wrong.
He didn’t need 23 guns. Just one or two with bags of ammo drums..
So, looking in his room would do nothing. I’ve had guns in rooms.
As for loud noises.. GUNFIRE is loud.
He obviously had practice shooting somewhere.
Isis claims multiple times for responsibility how can this be ignored especially when everybody involved seems to have a beard
Profiling people with beards doesn’t make any person a suspect, but having the Isis turds quadruple down stating that the dead guy found in the 32nd room was one of their own should not be taken lightly. The reporting on this tragedy is a disgrace in itself. “We The People” are NOT getting the full story from the mainstream (lamestream) media.
Alternative media sources are asking the questions that the mainstream media will not touch or talk about.
There is VERY little about this case. Details are sparse. I, too, do not trust CNN so I searched elsewhere. I cannot find the depositions, just the final court dismissal of the case. Nevertheless, Oxygen.com posted “Paddock was also revealed to be somewhat of a drifter, living largely at hotel casinos, where he lived for free (an amenity provided to certain gamblers) about “95% of the time.” He did not drink much according to his own testimony, but was often provided with free liquor by the hotels. He did not like to tip the waitresses who brought him drinks.
Paddock had described himself as one of the “biggest video poker players in the world … I’ll gamble all night. I sleep during the day … I do not do sun.” He said he had gambled upwards of $1 million each night.”
What I find disturbing is that supposedly in 2006 (11 long years ago), Paddock claimed he gambled 14 hours a day. Let’s assume he cut back over the past few years. That still has a 64 year old man who has been sitting GLUED to a video poker machine 365 days a year. Let’s assume he didn’t gamble EVERY day. He still sat for hours at a time and could NOT have been in the physical condition it takes to shoot guns modified with a bump stock device.
Plus, for those of us in Nevada who do like to sit at slot machines, there is a lot of second hand smoke. One reason why I had to stop taking my brother who has COPD. Smoking environment plus sitting does not bode well for someone who had to run between the bedroom and the main room in a suite lugging guns, does it?
And then there’s the Mesquite Senior Center lunch regulars who swear that at 11 a.m. on Thursday, Sept. 28, Paddock asked the cook for her enchilada recipe. But, after several days of press conferences, we learn that Paddock had checked into the Mandalay Bay on Monday, Sept. 25. But then the Sheriff said Paddock went back and forth to Mesquite that week and YET Laura Loomer’s interviews with the valet show the Chrysler Pacifica Touring (a minivan) never left the parking garage despite having Tannerite. And the cost of a 2017 brand new Pacifica (a vehicle I’ve been coveting) is not $14,411 as reported
http://heavy.com/news/2017/10/stephen-paddock-cars-vehicles-explosives-tennerite-bombs-vegas-shooter-photos-pictures-steven/
BUT at least $30,995 so what gives? Was it used?
Lisa Crawford, the apartment manager who worked for him up until 2012 was written up in the Daily Mail after her interview on ABC. Crawford was in shock and broke down crying. She never saw any indication that Paddock could do such a thing.
Then there’s more: “Steve Wynn, speaking to Chris Wallace on Fox News Sunday this morning, said that he had checked with all his staff (right down to masseurs and beauty shop operators) who had or might have had contact with Paddock or Mari Danley, and they reported that no one had ever seen Paddock or Marilou take a drink. Of course, this is unusual, because alcohol is not only free, but encouraged for gamblers at Paddock’s level.” And YET
The LA Times wrote “Kallie Beig, who worked at the local Great Clips, told CNN that she had cut his hair at least three times over the past three years. He smelled strongly of liquor each time.
It was the all-night gambling, she said.
He frequented Peggy Sue’s, a popular bar in town, residents said. The bartenders and regulars said he was seldom without a drink. A neighbor said her husband saw Paddock at the bar frequently, and others said he and his girlfriend, Marilou Danley, were regulars at Friday night karaoke at Peggy Sue’s — although it was Danley who liked to sing.”
None of this makes sense. He was a heavy drinker or he wasn’t. Paddock also STARRED at other players and creeped them out yet few seem to have seen him.
And then there’s the missing security camera footage. There should be thousands of still shots of him in casinos but they just aren’t getting posted.
If Paddock was an Advantage Player who was really in it for the free hotel rooms, meals, cruises, cars, perks, etc., shouldn’t there be photos of him winning such prizes?
And last but not least, The LA Times reported: “After paying for his girlfriend’s trip to visit family in the Philippines, Paddock appears to have been in downtown Las Vegas from Sept. 14 to 28, according to records reviewed by representatives of the El Cortez Hotel and Casino, who spoke to The Times on condition of anonymity.
The representatives said Paddock did not spend the night there or make a reservation. But he was seen in the El Cortez on Sept. 16, and he obtained a player’s card and played slots and blackjack on Sept. 17, buying in on the latter with $40. Representatives said Paddock won about $300.
“He only played one time,” one of the representatives said. “Enough to get a meal.”
The next week, Paddock returned to El Cortez on Sept. 21 and 24. At some point, he ate two meals with his winnings. He cashed out his ticket on Sept. 24, his sole use of the casino’s ATM machines.
The timeline overlaps with the three-day outdoor Life Is Beautiful concert, which ran from Sept. 22 to 24 and which featured similarly high-profile acts as Lollapalooza.
Paddock booked an Airbnb in a condo building [The Ogden] overlooking the Life Is Beautiful music festival, leading investigators to gather video footage from the building to learn more.”
There are discrepancies in the story about the Ogden, as well.
I think he booked a room under his name–the suite–and the adjacent room under her name and used two different check in dates. He also flew to Phoenix that week and rented a car, which might explain why his car was at the hotel and he could still go back and forth to Mesquite. I’ll probably get trolled, but I think that he ordered for two guests on the room service order to make it look like his girlfriend–who had a room booked in her name–was also there with him, event though he was alone.
Good comments, Anthony and Captain Jack. I went through the same evolution of thought on this as a lot of other people, but came round to the same way of thinking as you two. While it’s extremely rare for anyone to end up like Paddock, we should take his story as a cautionary tale. If anyone ever needed better balance in his life, it was Paddock. A lot of the activities in which advantage players have to engage are unhealthy for the mind and body. Don’t overdo it. Recognize the effects that the lifestyle may be having on you, and take steps to correct the situation.
I came across a comment in the Los Angeles Times from an Edmonton gambler. I believe the comment to be true, particularly after reading this article and all the comments here. Stephen Paddock thought the casinos were cheating him. He told Robert.roberts0361 he had tried suing, and they buried him with their lawyers. Then he said he was going to do something about it and talked about an AR15. The person making the comment, a retired military person of some kind, did not know the term and asked what is that in the military. He said M16. Please see my Instagram page, which is Rodney4K , I’ve retyped that comment word for word there. I believe it to be true. It also would prove Stephen Paddock was horribly addicted to gambling. He told Robert.roberts0361 he was on a two day stopover from a 19 day cruise and had driven to Edmonton from British Columbia, presumably Vancouver, just to gamble. After reading everything here, I’m more convinced than ever that comment is the real deal. I encouraged the writer to contact the FBI, I’ve also done so myself previously. I also write at my Instagram page about an encounter I’d had with Stephen Paddock after he’d watched me closely playing Blackjack at Excalibur at three or four in the morning. Never, in all my years of playing Blackjack before or since, has anyone ever talked to me after I cashed out and told me I know what you’re doing after using a fairly complicated progressive system of my own design, which saw my bets change in amounts not normally associated with Blackjack players. He wanted to talk about the math. And he also told me casinos were cheating. There’s no way that person could have been anybody other than Stephen Paddock. Especially since his girlfriend was also standing off to the side while we talked.
Update – I just posted this at my Instagram page. I’m beginning to remember more details about my encounter with Stephen Paddock. First of all, it was Stephen Paddock, he told me his name and we shook hands. It would have actually really been nice to make friends with the guy, I’m terrible at that and I suspect very much so is he. He does come off as arrogant and belligerent, but contrary to my early recollection, he was not drunk. We have the common connection of thinking in numbers and probably both have mild to moderate aspbergers, or are highly functioning autistics. But, other than that we are very different. I gave him my card, I do that a lot. I work in music publishing and licensing. Mariou Danley was there, she was standing off to the side. If we talked, it was very briefly. The important thing as per the investigation is yes, he did talk about casinos cheating and he also did mention something about shooting from windows. He became very animated, started pointing at 45 degree angles and saying look, they’re all around! (Which also confirms Marilou Danley knew of the general plans, or at least that they existed). I said something to the efffect of I wouldn’t at all be surprised if it happens. The casinos create a lot of pissed off people. Through my MGM players card, the exact date and time of the encounter is possible to pinpoint. If there is any video, that can also be reviewed. Maybe even audio. This happened in June or July of 2016. It was right before a surgery when I made a trip to Las Vegas.
Wish I could edit my earlier comment. The misspelling of effect bugs me. But, after looking at my comment on Instagram I left one detail out. He did tell me he lived in the casino. It’s kind of funny, because, I said, “Here? This dump? Excalibur?” And he said, no, Mandalay Bay. I didn’t know whether to believe him or not. Since when do people actually live in casinos? In this era, I mean. Anyway, I hope all this helps. None of it need ever have happened. Even a simple room check would have prevented all of it right up til the day it happened.
Harry wrote: “Are that that many perks given and is a lot of that cash or simply hotel, food, booze and limo rides?”
Not so much cash these days but certainly beaucoup amounts of freeplay, gifts, drawings, freeroll tournaments, loss rebates, marker payback rebates, and other stuff.
I’m sure the guy was just exaggerating with the whole million a day in action 365 a year piece. Most likely is he hit 5 million in W2Gs. That seems like a reasonable amount for a guy who plays a few days a week at the $25 level. Figure 15% of return is a W2G, then 35 million a year in play would net that.
He probably played very close to break even; people really underestimate the equity in some of these drawings and VIP events especially at the elite play level. I heard the guy maybe made a few mistakes, but it also sounded like he was very demanding about when and where to play which is way more important than playing 100% accurately. A million bucks is ten royals on $25 coin games so he had plenty of bankroll. On the other I don’t think it’s possible to play that big anymore and have anything close to a sizable edge unless you really pick your spots; plus he would have been backed off due to net win if he ever got up big anywhere but it sounds like he was welcome at most chains; the fact he could still play at MGM is pretty notable IMO. As for win/loss records my experience is that these always underestimate wins; often times money from drawings or giveaways gets missed from the final tallies and occasionally they even leave out a W2-G.
It sounds like he had been playing for 10-15 years. If he was good and had money 15 years ago, it’s quite possible he could have made his millions at VP. People with a big bankroll who were smart enough to read the right books and study the game really crushed back then from what people tell me. More likely he made his money at real estate and grinded VP around break even for the comps.
I like VP more than most but playing big volume year after year would have to crush the soul. You combine that with drinking and antidepressants, frankly it’s surprising you don’t see this more often. For every guy like this there are probably 100 in casinos with similar problems except they also have lost 6-7 figures at gambling. A scary society indeed.
The problem with your theory is that here in Nevada, a retired person who plays just a few days a week is what we call a casual gambler. The shooter on the other hand claimed to be a “professional gambler”, which implies at least 40 hours per week or at least 2000 hours per year. In addition, he was known as a heavy gambler at multiple casinos in multiple cities, keeping that up would not leave a lot of free days off. As far as winning millions from the strip casinos, many people do that, quite a few have even written books on the subject. It’s about as rare as million dollar lottery winners.
I don’t see him as a winner in Video Poker. If he were making a profit, particularly a substantial one, he wouldn’t be concerned with casinos cheating him. Were he rational otherwise, he’d have no reason to commit mass murder. He was quite bizarre acting in our meeting, and very importantly, I’ve also remembered we were playing Blackjack at the same table in the Excalibur. He was betting $175 a hand, sometimes more, mostly losing. Marilou Danley sat next to him, betting $25 or less per hand. He watched me for a good long time, as I mentioned, when I was done, he said ‘“I saw what you were doing there. That’s smart.” (Gradual progression, not always advancing the bet after each hand, riding a winning streak as long as possible, then starting over at lowest bet, rinse, repeat.) This makes it much easier to pinpoint the exact date and time of our conversation, by matching the data on our respective players cards to that event. Then , it all depends on the existence of video. It clearly is very important for the investigation and for discovery, particularly since Paddock said, quite animatedly “Look all around you! Whaddaya see?! Windows!” It wouldn’t have even occurred to me as a possibility as to a way to extract revenge, especially since it has nothing to do with the casino floor. But, apparently, even then he was thinking ahead and had formed at least the genesis of a plan. And, yet, he apparently was forced to act before he was ready since the act of attempting to nail the door shut in the stairway probably tripped a silent alarm. I think he planned on hitting the concert as it was ending and people were leaving. He probably really wanted to hit the Saturday concert, but the noise from his downstairs neighbor spooked him. Rational enough to plan a heinous act meticulously, but edgy and impulsive enough to shoot at Jesus Campos because a door slammed in the hallway? Probably was drinking. He was drinking when I met him, he wasn’t completely drunk, though. His actions and some of what he talked about certainly was weird, though.
I think what probably happened is Stephen Paddock used to be a winner in Video Poker. But drinking became worse, the gambling addiction became worse, and he was aging as well. This would of course slow his reactions, and cause him to make more mistakes, all of which he attributed to the casinos cheating, not his own shortcomings. And, of course, I never heard from him. I’d already challenged him on the casinos cheating, which caused him to launch into his revenge speech. I didn’t fit his ideal compadre, i.e., a pushover. At least that makes sense to me.
I am surprised nobody has commented on an obvious angle to the Shooter’s profile. He had millions in Royal Fushes each year. At Tax Time those wins were undoubtedly counter balanced by his losses. Anthony Curtis related in the latest issue of LVA that the last 2 books purchased were about Taxes and Gambling Law.
Under the Trump tax plan guess how much will be allowed to be written off as losses?? ZERO!!!!! That deduction dies and so with it will any AP play on VP. The Shooter was an accountant, he had to have knowledge of that reality. Anyone who plays VP, at any level above a $1200 Royal, would have to be any idiot to be in action under those conditions.
The winning sum of $5.000,000 has been used in previous posts, Can you imagine having won $5.000.000 and subsequently losing that back plus an additional $500,000? You would not only be stuck the $500,000 but also owe the IRS another $1,000,000 to $2,000,000 in taxes on your non deductible winnings.
How come nobody in the Casino’s is screaming about this ? It will kill destroy $1 and up Slot and VP play.
You might be on to something. The shooter did not like paying taxes so he sold his California holdings for low tax Nevada and Texas holdings. Maybe he was unaware there is no loss carry forward for gambling and got hit with a big bill for “wins” that weren’t real and that caused him to flip out. Perhaps he owed more than his net worth to the IRS in back taxes for not accounting for gambling according to regulations (no carry forward of losses). In other words he was not the great accountant he thought he was. Buying the book made him realize his costly mistake.
That’s pretty good. I saw somewhere based on his level of play to get to the level where he would only have a 10% chance of going bust and a 90% chance of the best odds in his favor working out to a $140,000 profit would require an $81 million bankroll. I definitely think he was no longer winning. The Sheriff basically confirmed a watered down version of an addicted gambler in his interview. I wouldn’t be so curious or investigative about this story if Stephen Paddock hadn’t told me this outrageous idea in person at The Excalibur.
I meant to reply to you, but I replied to Liz instead. So I might reply to her again if I reread her comment and find something else worth commenting on there. You did a very good job of getting some not always easy to understand nuances about the finances involved.
I kind of thought cheating might have been a factor.
https://youtu.be/Kj4NT5VqYt0
I have found this entire thread very interesting providing me with some valuable insights. Thx to all the contributors. May I add one new thought that I did not see mentioned in quite the same way. Here goes: HATERS GONNA HATE ! I’m not an AP … but I play one on TV. That said, I visit Vegas a lot. 125 casino room nights last year and, so far, 70 casino room nites this year. I love Vegas because it is a “happy environment” in my view. I meet a lot of vacationers / visitors in the hotels, many from another country … and most everyone is friendly and seem very happy to be here even tho most will admit to losing money in the casino.
Punch line: For any variety of reasons, this shooter is NOT a happy person. Among other shortcomings, he suffers from a personality flaw which is often common to HATERS, namely … he “believes” (incorrectly) that he is superior to most all these happy Vegas Concert-goers and he subconsciously resents the fact that they are having the time of their lives at these various awesome concerts yet he, the “smarter one”, is not happy … add in some or all of the behavioral affectations described above by Captain Jack and others (e.g. emotionally detached, lack of empathy, etc) and you possibly could end up with the deranged “reasoning” of a HATER who says to the world … “I’ll show you!” … Disclaimer: I’m no psychologist … but I play one on TV.
He just wanted to inflict the maximum damage possible on the casinos as revenge. Shooting down a helpless crowd by turning his suite into a snipers nest was the most certain way to do it. It goes without saying he was pretty fucking miserable to even think of such an act in the detail he did, let alone carry it out.