Reopening Las Vegas

Interesting video, at CNN:

Powerball's Biggest Winner: Government

Heh.

My wife buys tickets.

Not me. I don't like the odds, lol.

From Michelle Malkin:

Ka-ching!

Wednesday’s Powerball jackpot soared to $1.5 billion as get-rich-quick mania seized America this week. But you don’t need to wait for the drawing to know who’ll score the royal payoff.

The biggest winner of the multistate numbers game is — drumroll, please — Uncle Sam.

Powerball is a government-sponsored gambling racket in 44 states, plus Washington, D.C., Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands. The feds automatically skim 25 percent off the top of a lump-sum cash award. Additional state withholding taxes vary depending on residency status. Mega-winners are taxed at the highest federal income tax bracket (nearly 40 percent); those who live in states with personal income taxes could pay up to an additional 9 percent. Local municipal taxes can add another 3-5 percent to the tax burden.

Government lotteries of all kinds raked in a whopping $70 billon in revenue last year, according to the North American Association of State and Provincial Lotteries. Cash-strapped states pitch the rackets as civic enterprises by purporting to earmark a portion of proceeds for public education, economic development and mass transit, senior citizens’ programs, professional sports stadiums and environmental protection.

As I’ve noted during previous, high-stakes lotto crazes, the state bureaucrats who run these schemes for numeracy-challenged consumers are free to ban outside competition — including private slot machines, phone betting, instant pull tabs and card rooms. The feds help out by limiting sweepstakes and Internet gambling, as well as exempting state lottery marketing materials from Federal Trade Commission regulations that guarantee truth in advertising.

That’s right. While cracking down on ads on everything from cereal to toothpaste to cars, Washington protects states that spend hundreds of millions of dollars every year falsely promising “a dollar and a dream,” “everyone is a winner” and “somebody’s gotta win — might as well be you.”

Numeracy challenged!

And ripped off by the permanent political bureaucracy!

Keep reading.

No Powerball Winner, So Jackpot Expected to Hit $1.3 Billion

That's pretty staggering.

At the Los Angeles Times, "No winning Powerball tickets sold; jackpot hits $1.3 billion."

'This has never happened before' — Powerball Jackpot Swells to $700 Million (VIDEO)

My wife bought tickets, heh.

Watch, at AP, "Powerball Jackpot Climbs to Estimated $700M."

And at the Los Angeles Times:

Describing the odds of winning Saturday's Powerball drawing as "slim" would be an understatement — but it would also be an understatement to call the jackpot "big."

For the 18th consecutive time, no one matched all six numbers to the Powerball lottery jackpot Wednesday night. As a result, the estimated prize for Saturday’s drawing has ballooned to an unprecedented $700 million.

Just to put that jackpot in global perspective, it’s larger than the gross domestic product for nine of the world’s island nations, according to the World Bank: Comoros, Dominica, Tonga, São Tomé and Príncipe, Micronesia, Palau, Marshall Islands, Kiribati and Tuvalu.

Wednesday’s jackpot was already more than a half-billion dollars. With the prize climbing to a level never reached, lottery officials expect the public’s excitement to reach a fever pitch by Saturday.

“I don’t even know how to describe it. This has never happened before,” said California State Lottery spokesman Alex Traverso. “All I can imagine now is seeing how the next three days unfold. Our sales just started today.

Powerball is played in 44 states and three U.S. territories. The jackpot minimum is $40 million because there are so many participants. On an average week in California, there’s maybe $6 million in sales divided between the Wednesday and Saturday drawings, Traverso said...

Donald Trump Cut Deals with Banks and Pulled Cash Out of Casinos to Weather Credit Crisis in the 1990s

Hmm, sounds like real world experience, something the current occupant of the White House sorely lacks.

At WSJ, "Trump and His Debts: A Narrow Escape":

On Labor Day weekend in 1990, as Donald Trump faced the worst crisis of his career, he and Wilbur Ross Jr. headed to Atlantic City, N.J., for talks at Mr. Trump’s opulent Taj Mahal casino, which had just opened but was already on the verge of missing a bond payment.

Mr. Ross, as an expert on distressed assets, represented bondholders. Mr. Trump brought him to the seaside town for talks, in a helicopter bearing the name “Trump” in giant red letters.

“The bondholders were obviously quite angry,” Mr. Ross says. “Their initial inclination was to throw the rascal out.”

The chopper landed on a helipad near the boardwalk. Instantly, people swarmed around a waiting car, thinking Mr. Trump was in it. “They were shoving video cameras at it…It was amazing the adulation he got from the crowd,” Mr. Ross recalls.

“It changed my whole opinion. That memory stuck with me and got me to the conclusion that the Taj Mahal stripped of Trump the individual would likely be a lot less successful than the Trump Taj Mahal with Donald.”

In 1990, Mr. Trump, though known publicly as financially savvy and very rich, was in deep financial trouble. He and his companies owed $3.4 billion and couldn’t make the payments. That posed the risk of lenders seizing his hotels, casinos and other assets.

Worse, $830 million of the debt carried his personal guarantee. Creditors, if they wanted, could force him into personal bankruptcy.

He survived. Today he is a billionaire, who cites his wealth and success as a reason that, as president, he could make America “great again.” Mr. Trump has no government record to weigh. One way to gauge the kind of president he might be is to examine his business career, and particularly how he dealt with its biggest crisis...

It's fascinating.

Keep reading.

Majority of Betting Public Counted on Fairy-Tale Ending to Peyton Manning's Magical Season

Yeah, and the bookie's made out big.

As I said before, Denver's poor play was literally shocking.

At NYT, "Minus Some Surprises, Sports Books Strike Gold in Wreckage of Broncos":

Thank you, Mr. Manning, for an amazing 2013 season. No matter how it ended, you put on one heck of a show. pic.twitter.com/plDGWozLrV

— NFL (@nfl) February 3, 2014

It was a good day at the office for Nevada sports books as the Seattle Seahawks’ 43-8 destruction of the Denver Broncos defied the expectations of the square money, representing the general betting public, which wanted to see a storybook ending to the record-breaking season of Denver quarterback Peyton Manning.

Two in three bettors put money on Denver, which closed as a 2 ½-point favorite, according to data provided by four online sports books and a survey of bookies. It meant the Nevada sports books were not only likely to surpass last year’s record of $98.9 million worth of action, but they could surpass the $15.4 million in profit the books won in 2005, or a healthy 17 percent hold margin, when New England beat Philadelphia, 24-21.

Last year, the sports books made $7,206,460 and held 7.3 percent of the total handle on the Baltimore Ravens’ 34-31 victory over the San Francisco 49ers. The Nevada Gaming Commission will release final figures later this week. Books have lost just twice in the game since the Nevada Gaming Commission started keeping records in 1991.

“Recreational bettors backed the quarterback they knew from TV commercials — while the wiseguys took an elite defense plus the points,” said R. J. Bell, the founder of Pregame.com, a handicapping website that tracks the industry.

The books were hurt on a couple of proposition bets, most notably on the first play from scrimmage when Broncos center Manny Ramirez snapped the ball past Manning for a safety. Several books offered 50-to-1 odds on the first scoring play being a Seahawks safety. It was the third straight Super Bowl in which there was a safety and the second time in three years that it was the first score of the game.

William Hill wrote at least one $25 ticket at 50 to 1, and the L.V.H. Las Vegas Hotel & Casino took some hits at 60 to 1.

“They bet there will be a safety every year, and any time there is one, the books get hurt,” said Nick Bogdanovich, the director of trading at William Hill U.S. “I think that’s three of four years now where there’s been one, so maybe we need to adjust the odds. But there’s also 50 years of data behind it. When crazy things happen, you pay for it. It’s not fun starting the day getting six figures in the hole.”

Keep reading.

Mega Millions Jackpot Soars to Estimated $636 Million

I don't go in for it, although my wife does.

Here's the Associated Press:

AP VIDEO: As the Mega Millions jackpot soars to an estimated $636 million, some players share their plans: http://t.co/J0xojJQyQ4
— The Associated Press (@AP) December 18, 2013

But see Michelle Malkin:

Powerball. Megamillions. Whatever the name, it's all the same government-protected, regressive tax-subsidized scam.
— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) December 18, 2013

Well, maybe some lucky schlep will win the big one, at the Boston Herald, "Mega Millions jackpot near record payout: Visions of 600M $ugarplums."