Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands Exploring $6 Billion Sale of Vegas Casinos
(Bad) sign of things to come for Vegas? Surprised that Adelson would want to sell basically at the lows; things must be looking pretty bleak on the Strip to consider dumping Las Vegas. REAL ESTATE News Wire Company News Investing 17m ago Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands Exploring $6 Billion Sale of Vegas Casinos Gillian Tan and Christopher Palmeri, Bloomberg News Pedestrians pass in front of the Venetian Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., on Sunday, Oct. 18, 2020. Las Vegas Sands Corp. is scheduled to release earnings figures on October 21. Pedestrians pass in front of the Venetian Resort in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., on Sunday, Oct. 18, 2020. Las Vegas Sands Corp. is scheduled to release earnings figures on October 21. , Bloomberg (Bloomberg) -- Sheldon Adelson’s Las Vegas Sands Corp. is exploring the sale of its flagship casinos in Las Vegas, according to people familiar with the matter, a move that would mark the mogul’s departure from the gambling mecca. The casino operator is working with an adviser to solicit interest from potential suitors, and may fetch $6 billion or more for its Vegas properties, said the people, who asked to not be identified because the talks are private. The portfolio includes the Sands Expo Convention Center, the Venetian Resort Las Vegas and the Palazzo. A representative for the company confirmed it was in very early discussions about a sale and that nothing has been finalized. A sale would result in Adelson, one of the world’s richest men, exiting the U.S., with his remaining casino assets concentrated in Macau and Singapore. Adelson is chairman, chief executive officer and a majority shareholder of Las Vegas Sands, which has a market value of $37.5 billion. The stock rose as high as 12% in after-hours trading Monday, after Bloomberg reported on the news of the deal. The stock had closed down 3.1% to $49.13. https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/adelson-s-las-vegas-sands-exploring-6-billion-sale-of-vegas-casinos-1.1513344
Marketing to millennials has proven difficult for gambling companies. For those who do not know, the'millennial' period is used extensively to describe humans born between 1980 and 2000. The past generations have fallen into splendor and charm as casino companies grow, but the millennials have not been very accommodating. , And the hassle of marketing for this generation of buyers is unexpectedly turning into a hot button problem for the gaming industry. Despite the perceptions many older people have of millennials, there is absolute confidence that it could be an important market determining the fate of businesses that are expected to live for a long time to come. Millennials total 87 million people, more than 10 million more than baby boomers. In the next five years, most analysts expect millennials to be the driving force behind almost every quarter of all retail spending. With these facts in mind, you can see why basic players in online casino companies are concerned. Preferred millennials don't gamble horribly across generations, especially in terms of slots. This fashion can be seen through sales analysis on the Las Vegas Strip. Despite having a much smaller hobby of gambling, young tourists are heading for Sin City in groups, but they are not spending coins at the casino ground. Currently, less than 37% of all revenue generated on the Strip comes from game revenue. Instead, visitors are enjoying, buying, and enjoying the nightlife. For evaluation, 58% of Las Vegas Inn's revenue came from gambling in the 90s.
Marketing to millennials has proven difficult for gambling companies. For those who do not know, the'millennial' period is used extensively to describe humans born between 1980 and 2000. The past generations have fallen into splendor and charm as casino companies grow, but the millennials have not been very accommodating. , And the hassle of marketing for this generation of buyers is unexpectedly turning into a hot button problem for the gaming industry. With these facts in mind, you can see why basic players in online casino companies are concerned. Preferred millennials don't gamble horribly across generations, especially in terms of slots. This fashion can be seen through sales analysis on the Las Vegas Strip. Despite having a much smaller hobby of gambling, young tourists are heading for Sin City in groups, but they are not spending coins at the casino ground. Currently, less than 37% of all revenue generated on the Strip comes from game revenue. Instead, visitors are enjoying, buying, and enjoying the nightlife. For evaluation, 58% of Las Vegas Inn's revenue came from gambling in the 90s.
I've hated where I live (Las Vegas, NV) for years but my plans to move keep getting thwarted.
I'm the son of a union construction worker who has taken me from my birthplace of Chicago at the age of 10 and moved me and my family across the country to New Mexico, Nevada, and Indiana. I arrived in Las Vegas for my seventh grade of school, and my life has never been the same since. Before anyone says that the "grass is not greener on the other side", I want to acknowledge the fact that I have not had only bad times. It's just the frequency of bad events and people who have gone out of their way to do harm to me or my progress is sincerely over the top. If you have ever been to Vegas outside of the strip, you'll probably think it's beautiful and new compared to some other parts of the country, and that part may be true. It is a newly developing city that is starting to mirror the likes of other rising metropolitan areas. Yet, I cannot accurately express my level of disgust for the quality of people that exist here, from school, to jobs, to churches, I have experienced nothing but the same variety of transient loser who has come out here to Vegas from somewhere else seeking some element of the fast life. I have tried getting out, most recently have been here since 2014, and in the last six years, every two years; I have developed a new plan to get out of this place. And all three have failed, just a month ago I had a glimmer of hope to get to Colorado and continue my career there. I went through three interviews just to be turned down at the last minute after I already set my plans in motion. Not to mention with covid-19 having changed everybody's worlds, it has not allowed me anymore respite from the atrocities that I witness here in Vegas on a regular basis. The last few months, there have been more stabbings, shootings, and robberies by the strip and outside of the strip. I recently just moved out of an apartment complex far off-strip where a man had thrown his infant child off of the second floor balcony and set his apartment on fire, killing his dog. The infant didn't make it. I woke up at 4am to the ungodly, horrific wailing of the mother who was trying to resuscitate her child on the cold sidewalk. For almost two months I had to look upon the apartment unit kiddy corner from mine and be reminded of what happened just a couple hundred feet away. When things were good here, I had two large groups of friends who have since either moved away, or betrayed my trust in some way to where I have not had any friends to regularly visit but two. Even during the so-called "good times", I had put my best foot forward working in construction, sales, logistics, you name it And jobwise it is just as depraved as any other aspect of living in this city. Absolutely everybody has gotten their job through nepotism, and they all actively seek whoever they can screw out of a job for any dumb reason. I know this is not exclusive to Las vegas, but at this point I am utterly convinced that Las Vegas is the America of america, in that they sell the wildest dreams of luck and chance to those who see this bright City from afar off and in reality opens its wide Jaws to swallow in these transient visitors, such as myself. And it will not let go until it feels it has gotten everything it wants out of you. I can't help but to feel that I have lost so much since being here, and the only thing that gives me peace is the fact that I have maintained my faith in my respective God and I have tried my best not to fall in to the same pitfalls that people around here fall into. There is no good industry besides the hospitality and tourism industry, and everybody knows how that has been going since this virus pandemic. Even before the pandemic, casinos and tourism related industries were the only thing going for this place, it has nothing else solid or respectable to speak of. This year, since the raiders stadium especially, more people have been coming here from California and Texas and elsewhere trying to live cheaply, in every sense of the word. Our roads are completely unsafe, our government does not care unless California's does, and most of the outrageous newsworthy events that happened in the city are clearly muffled and not allowed to surface so that the city can continue collecting more people and sucking them dry. I have lived in four states in my life, I'm only 25, and yet I can see that this is the worst place I have ever lived, and if I can do anything to get myself out of here with my girlfriend that I love, I would do it. Sometimes, I feel like I am trapped in purgatory I'm around a bunch of people who not only don't care about themselves, but seem to hate others in any given setting or scenario whether professional or casual. I and my family have become afraid to leave the house, we only shop for groceries in the very early morning because we don't trust that anybody in this city would have the willpower or intelligence or wherewithal to avoid crowds as these covid-19 guidelines have been suggesting. Excuse this monumentally long post, but I have been stuck here for a total of six years most recently, and I'm beginning to feel like I don't exist because of this cycle of repetition I have found myself in in this city because no matter what I do, no matter what job I get, no matter how hard I work, no matter who I spend my time around with, it all turns to dust. My best advice to anyone ever, do not move here. Visit, and leave but do not live, not if you value the deeper things of life, for there is nothing but shallow Waters here that have been made to look very deep. Please, fellow Redditors, don't ever find yourself in a place like this, and if you relate to what I'm saying, I hope we are all going to make it out of this together. Tl;Dr: Las Vegas is a cesspool and I have been spinning my wheels trying to escape its clutches, do not move here and do not fall for their lies about how great this city is. They won't mention the level of violence and crime, the shoddy school systems, and the overall culture that exists in this city that values everything fake and tinsel over what's real and substantial.
Ok It's Time for my...Annual *Pre-Burning Man Rant and Predictions!!
Ok It's Time for my . . . Annual Pre-Burning Man Rant and Predictions!!! After 22+ years of attendance, I have watched this festival go from what was described by Wired Magazine in 1997 as, "what the internet would be like if it was happening in reality" to 2020 where, "What? In reality, this festival is happening on the internet" ?!? What a serious head fuck . . . So strap in or strap on and get ready for disappointment . . . like virtually everything in this virtual world right now. Here goes this year's Virtual Rant! PREDICTIONS The Virtual Burn is going the be everything you think it could be . . . an underwhelming and depressing reminder that you are not going the real Burning Man this year. While it is still better than nothing, nothing is an extremely low bar. Get ready for a clusterfuck of 8 separately-produced interpretive video game dreamscapes, made by skilled teams of programmers eager to prove that their world-building technology will be able to make future financial investors a shitload of money. Burning Man 2021 is a 50/50 chance at best. 2022 is not looking that great either. Between The Org burning cash on side projects, the FEDs wanting to crack down hard and the Bureau of Land Management clearly pretty fucking stoked that they did not have to deal with the whole shitshow this year, it's going to be an uphill battle for the festival to return. Huge changes will need to be made. Those few gluttons for punishment who do decide to go to the playa this week will be treated to Burning Man without the Burning Man Experience. It will take all the hard work, organization and preparation for survival in the middle of a harsh desert environment for a week of Burning Man . . . just without the Burning Man. If there is one silver lining of the event not happening this year, it's the fact that I don't have to pack up my dust covered Burning Man bullshit from last year, drive 19 hours, then have to smuggle drugs inside my ass to make it past the BLM rangers just go camping in one of the most fucking miserable and inhospitable places on earth. Without Shirtcockers, Megaphones and Massive Thumping Soundsystems, it's just a bogus camping trip in bad weather with a shitload of cops. This year we will NOT be seeing the usual post-Burn MASSSIVE FLOOD of social media posts from Burners who lost their nice $60 water bottle/container somewhere on the playa, often accompanied by a story of why this particular water container was of importance because it has a strap on it, followed by a brief description of unique camps stickers on it and a photo of said missing water bottle/container. In fact, while we are starting to think about cutting costs -- How about lost and found stops giving a fuck about your overpriced water bottle. You lost it, Becky . . . let it go. You spent 20 times More Money on Cocaine for the week than the price of your fucking stoopid-Smart-Bottle-container. THE VIRTUAL BURN This year’s Virtual Burn brings about more questions than it does answers. How will Shirtcockers express their hatred of pants without a Burning Man? In a virtual world, they become no different than unsolicited dick pics. How will Artcar Owners be able to swing their metaphorical dicks around without their Artcars booming Deep House music to show the world their girth. Sure, you can build one in the Minecraft world for this years Burn . . .But lets face it: No one is gonna be like "Who did that 3D CAD drawing, I totally wanna fuck them!" What will all the Assholes with Megaphones do without Burners to heckle? Without handheld amplified audio devices and wide-open spaces, they become no different than Internet Trolls. How will Hippies on a Vision Quest be able find their spirit animal online? Without a guided shamanic ritual and Temple to burn, they become no different than someone playing Animal Crossing. If there is no moop or trash to clean up in a virtual Burning Man how can Moop-shamers be able to prove to campmates and others that they are better at "doing Burning Man " than everyone else? In a virtual world they become no different than a Sarah McLaughlin Green Peace commercial. How will Dooshbonnets and Dooshbags be able to gain followers on Instagram without the giant Robot Heart to climb? How can they show the world that they not only have braved the pool of Piranhas chomping for position for line, negotiated past the all-seeing and all-knowing doorgirl with a clipboard, proving that they have climbed both the social and physical ladder to reach the top of the Robot Heart, so that they may look down upon the lowly dancefloor with both spite and pity for the unwashed masses who where not able achieve such greatness. Without this accomplishment, they become no different than average Twitter users vying for Celebrity attention. How will Burning Man DJs be able to disappoint us with poorly executed timing and bullshit Michael Jackson remixes? Without huge Soundsystems to bang out the worst in modern electronic music, DJs just become . . . The SAME TERRIBLE DJs just now on Twitch! #playatech #Djstreaming #Djsofburningman Although each Virtual World must have been an amazing feat of programming in its scope and size, it kinda feels like a huge project that was done in a short amount of time. None of the Eight Worlds, in any way, reflect the typical Burning Man experience. However, there are a few non-official super realistic Burning Man simulators out there. By far the most realistic experience has to be the "Getting Out More This Year" Simulator. The player is welcomed to a rich and tangible 3D World of Chris's DopeAss 70s RV, which is camped way out on 4:30 and H, where your avatar can spend all day and all night doing fun things like Ketamine, or other colorful interactive game play such as snorting Ketamine, and even interact with the virtual Chris’s chat box and watch his avatar do Ketamine. Other game play options include doing Ketamine, talking about doing Ketamine and also doing Ketamine. The more days and nights spent doing Ketamine, the higher the score! If you want to experience what a typical Burner really does the whole week, than this one is for you!! Then we have: "Let's Go Party" . . . the online multi-player game where the objective is to get your group of more than 6 Burners to try and leave camp, and all go out to party together. I did not have much fun playing. I was never able to leave the front of camp. 14 hours of game play later, Brenda still needs to go back for chapstick and Ricky can’t find his bag of blow. Then once Brenda arrives ready, Kaleporia is cold and needs a scarf. Darkwad David is going back to get some blinky lights for the 3rd time. Now Timmy can't find his cigarettes . . . Fuck. “ManBun Boyfriend”. In this first person POV game, you (the ManBun) has little to no control within the game, with only a single "Ok, Sure" button to navigate within the world. The game play opens as the player is dragged out of bed at 6 AM by the onscreen girlfriend who takes you (the ManBun) on an treacherous journey of sunrise yoga classes, self help lectures, think and grow rich seminars, yoga, positive affirmation workshops, mindful guided mediations, yoga, healing arts ceremonies, wellness and well-being talks, yoga, vegan lifestyle in the new age conferences, yoga, mindful-and-wellness-group-chat and also yoga. Extra points if you can score a selfie in front of the Giant BELIEVE letters!! After 8 grueling hours of game play, it simply flashes a screen where girlfriend says "I'm Tired", and the “ManBun Boyfriend” simulator then restarts game play to opening sequence. “DJs Girlfriend”. This simulation offers a similar experience to “ManBun Boyfriend”. However, in this first person POV game, you (the DJs Girlfriend) is invited to Follow "Dj GlockTrigger" on a dubstep-and-monster-energy-drink-filled adventure as you (the DJs Girlfriend) is rushed from empty dancefloor to empty dancefloor, while picking up extra points if you can find him a "line of blow". After 12 hours of game play the screen flashes "Hey babe I'm gonna go drink with the boyies" and game play is reset. THE RANT I am not that great at finance. Obviously. I’ve been to Burning Man 22 times. That should tell you enough about my poor financial / life choices. But even this burnout Burner can do the math and see that the Burning Man Org is in financial trouble. Burning Man may need to sell out to save itself. It would not be the first time.. Burning Man "sold out" to the PsyTrance community in 1997. To help ticket sales, the Bay Area was flooded with seriously lame underproduced Rave flyers. Or maybe Dr. Dre can toss in a few million to keep The Org afloat once again. Or hey why don't we start tickling Elon Musk's balls again, and see if we can start choking on his shaft in return for some sweet corporate demon semen sponsorship. The Org has already gone pinky finger deep with him. Like when Tesla brought out a full-on Electric Car Expo. That's right, in 2007, at Burning Man, right at fucking Esplanade & 9:00, they had what can only be described as an “anonymous car dealership” from “the green future”, complete with lengthy-worded displays filled with lofty promises of clean energy, infused with subtle corporate propaganda. In the center of the exhibit sat a life-size solid black plastic model Tesla car. As well as someone on guard 24/7 to make sure no one tagged or fucked with the stoopid thing. I personally got chased out for drawing a dick in the DUST on the window! All I know is they should have burnt it down or blew it up by the end of the week, but that lame ass mother fucker was still there on Sunday when I journeyed back to draw a dick on it again -- this time with a PAINT PEN. After executing a perfect fat-sacked-choad-headed-donger on the hood, I was once again chased out by rangers, this time with pitchforks screaming bloody murder for my head!! Fuck you, Ranger Doug! You will never be able to prove that was Me!!! So Look, it's not the first time The Org spread its asscheeks for a little bit of corporate dick on the side. They also bent over back in 2013 and let Mark Fucking Zuckerberg bring a Giant Golden 'LIKE' sculpture out there. I just hope they did the right thing by the end of week and it was killed with fire. SO we know The Org is corporateBiCurious. Time to snuggle up, get out of the corporate cocksucking closet and cash in on the fact that this place sold out a long time ago. Start flirting with attractive corporate entities like Mark Z, the Google Boys, Elon, Tommy Boy from Myspace, or maybe even P-Diddy to toss in some cash to get this fucking party started again! Yo, Elon! How can we have Burning Man on Mars in 2050 as planned, if we can’t keep it going on Earth for the next 30 years? At this point, The Org can spread their legs in the backseat of that Tesla and change next years theme to Space-X. I could give a FUCK!!!!! As long as we can keep Old Naked Dudes On Bikes rolling free. Let some of these cocksucking limpdick corporations like Doritos -- who have already profited from using our Artcars and culture in a their fabricated commercials -- actually fucking pay us money and we will let them shoot a real commercial out there. Have fun pixelating the nipples out of the background actors. I COULD GIVE A FUCK as long as Shirtcockers have a natural habitat to dongslap and roam free. Let Brazzers.com build the Temple! I sincerely really don't care what they do . . . as long as Assholes with Megaphones have wide open spaces to heckle Burners in the Black Rock Desert like GOD intended. BACK TO BASICS : THE FESTIVAL WILL NEED TO RESEST Maybe The Org will stop fisting themselves in the burnhole with all the Cultural-Direction-Bullshit and get down to brass tax here. They have spent years trying to market the festival as a family-friendly-non-offensive-all-inclusive-experience for the suburban upperclass while still catering to the super elite. We need The Org to provide the DPW and Tickets . . . Not for Cultural Direction, or Large Scale Art Funding Circle Jerks, Abstract Charity Causes, International Involvement, or any of the Meaningless Feel-Good Propaganda tools they use to control the image of the festival! The number one focus from here on out needs to be the festival itself taking place once again in Black Rock City! This defacto-defunding of The Org is a blessing. Look, when it comes down to it, it's not about the lame fucking themes each year. It's about the Burners who come and contribute to the festival that makes it special. It’s not about overpriced art grants, or Rich-Dick Theme Camp placement priorities. It about the shitty unofficial un-themed camp at 7:00 and J blaring Discotrance music on a distorted soundsystem while giving away room temperature margaritas! I could give a fuck about all of the elaborate expensive blinking bullshit! Cuts cost! Make the Burning Man effigy from toothpicks for all I give a fuck. None of that shit really matters. The spirit of Burning Man is in the person giving away ice cream from a cooler out in deep playa on a hot afternoon. The soul of the festival is in Old Naked Dudes on a Bikes rolling free across the desert! The heart of the festival is the Nightmare Hippy Chick on Acid rolling around in the dust, screaming about her spirit vegetable. Believe me if The Org had its way, Burning Man would be nothing but Transformational Mediation Seminars, Yoga Classes, Ultra Overpriced Sculptures, and TED talks about how to get rich quick selling a new type of investment portfolio. I am perfectly happy with the crappy bars and half-assed theme camps that are there just to have a good time. We don't need The Org's unique brand of new age capital-elitism bullshit. They have clearly dropped the ball on the Cultural Direction for years, and the less they steer the ship, the better, cuz we have already washed up on the rocks. BULLSHIT CLICKBAIT “Top 10 Burning Man Pictures You Must See To Believe!” And once clicked, sure enough it’s nothing but a bunch of super basic-ass photos of some super-hot-Coachella-swinger-couple at sunset in front of the most gentrified “OMG I need to get a selfie in front that to show my followers on Instagram” artwork on the playa. You already know exactly where these fucksticks took the stoopid photo is front of, OF fucking course it's in front of the BELIEVE letters. It’s Basically the "live, laugh, love" of playa art. Really, I won't believe this ?! What I won't believe is that their relationship is going to last beyond next week . . . cuz there’s a 90% chance they are gonna join the wrong gangbang at the Orgy Dome and suddenly someone is not happy about the amount of buttfucking the other one received. Thanks Business Insider Magazine for exposing the public to the wild and crazy world that is Burning Man. Now every fucking Chad and Becky from Wall Street is trying to come here to get laid. "Bro if I was there I would bang so many Hot Chicks on top of those letters" . . . "OMG I LOVE those Letters!! We are SOOO going to Burning Man to meet our future husbands <3." How about 10 REAL photos you won’t believe? Too bad the cameras weren’t there to snap a picture of the guy who took a shower with a fat chick and midget porn star! It’s a shame no one from the Daily Mail UK was there to catch video of the guy who was tripping his nuts off and could not figure out how to unlock the door of the porta-potty -- escaping only by busting through the plastic roof and climbing out the top several hours later. Or how about that chick at the meditation camp that was able to summon a higher power of consciousness and transcended the spacetime continuum for a short/infinite amount of time! Where the fuck was BoredPanda.com to catch a photo of the person who was hit with a rubber dildo when it was carelessly thrown from the top of the Space Pirate ship into the Mayan Warrior crowd. Now That’s some real stuff that happens out there that I would be happy to clickbait on! THERE WILL BE SOME CHANGES MADE The Large Scale Art: Instead of funding massive installations that end up being resold to casinos on the Las Vegas strip, why not treat them like large Rich-Dick Theme Camps -- give the Installation Artists 200 DGS Tickets, and in return, these assholes will be happy to spend shitloads of money on blinky light towers or whatever, just so they can lock in those sweet sweet reserved tickets for themselves and their friends. The Tone: The Utopian Blinkylight Dreamscape has been cool for the past 16 years . . . Buuuut . . . it has gradually fallen out of touch with the world around us. For far too long, The Org has ignored camps or underfunded art that could be perceived as dark or controversial in any way, shape or form. Yet again, another example of their Cultural Direction Tactics to market Burning Man as a blinky-light-mickey-mouse-Epcot-Center for wealthy-business-insiders-and-celebrities featuring a safespace-family-oriented-wholesome-body-wellness-green-living-environment for social-media-influencer-photo-shoots. Burning Man has NEVER been a Safe place! In 1998, I witnessed a beheading by guillotine at the Opera Performance that was so realistic I spent the next 5 hours (still frying balls on acid!) convinced that Billy Graham was right about this place being a Satanic death cult that would bring about the end of the world. IT WAS DISTURBING! If the Barbie Death Camp incident at last years’ Burn taught us anything, it is that there clearly need to be risky and controversial works of art at the festival. We can't be having pussy-footed Australians throwing temper tantrums like little punk bitches CUZ they don't like the way someone put Barbie Dolls inside an oven! Why did that do-good-koala-humping-limpdick-ASS-licker think it was OK? Well . . .The Org has shoved the narrative that Burning Man is strictly "good vibes only" down our fucking throats so deep that we finally gagged from it. Why the fuck was that guy even there? Well, he clicked on the Business Insiders’ “Top Ten Burning Man Photos You Must See To BELIEVE” and thought it was gonna be nothing but butterfly sculptures and Instagram Models in front of giant letters. No Kids: Yep. Sorry Minecraft Burners, but you are gonna have to wait until you are 21 to come to this party! Renegotiating the insurance policy as an over-21 festival will save The Org millions and millions of dollars. Out of 80,000 people, less than .05% are under 21 . . .yet we have to check IDs at every fucking bar !? Every year the gate gets closed down and no one can filter in or out because someone asshole can't find their kid. This should be a HUGE red flag ! Law Enforcement uses the fact that minors are allowed at the event as justification to engage in predatory conduct such as undercover stings, camp raids and random tickets for unsuspecting bartenders who forget to check IDs. Also I am not comfortable with the legal grey area the Shirtcocking and Titbouncing in the presence of minors creates. And if it ever comes down to nudity versus allowing kids, I am sorry but we can't sacrifice the heart of this festival on account of the fact that you don't want to get a fucking babysitter for the week. Your kids could give a flying-donald-duck-fuck about Burning Man! You and I both know goddamn well that given the opportunity they would rather play video games for the week at grandma's house then have to listen to Mom and Dad fight at Burning Man all week about who got buttfucked by whom at the Orgy Dome. . . LEAVE THEM AT HOME!!!!!! So the rest of us can be free to fuck, drink, smoke and wave our goddamn dicks and clits around whereever we see fit!!! The Temple: In the early days of the David Best Temples, they were constructed from the leftover hollows of wooden dinosaur jigsaw puzzle pieces. It was low cost, recycled and pretty fucking cool! Last year’s Temple was overdesigned, structurally unsound, and made from rare rustic-oak hardwood and redwood trees imported from China. Let’s cut costs and just do what those guys from Belgium did in 2005. It's a Very Simple Plan. We get a shitload of old 2x4 boards and fucking Wing It! The Belgium Waffle House would have made a perfectly good Temple. Garbage Dumpsters: Yep, that's right. In the future we will have dumpsters at Burning Man! All the Survivalist and Moop-shaming Burners say it will destroy the festival. Guess what, Burn Nut? It's already common practice for larger theme camps to rent dumpsters that are emptied at the end of the week!! It's been going on for YEARS! So what? Theme Camps will now have to pay a dumpster fee and there will be strict rules around any public dumpsters. Believe me The Org will provide the minimum amount possible to accommodate the BLM. It won't be nearly enough dumpsters for everyone to just toss all their trash, recycling and extra bikes into. Don't worry, Radical Self-Reliant Survivalist Burnertypes, other people will still have to suffer packing up and dealing with their own trash on the ride home. Moop-shamers rejoice! You will definitely still be able to shame people for mooping and not cleaning up, if not even more so now. I don't see why we can't be Radically Self-Reliant by having dumpsters on site. We will still Leave No Trace, while leaving one less thing for surrounding communities to bitch about. Build the Wall !!! Ya fuck it! Build the Wall. So what? Honestly, it will be more aesthetically pleasing than that fucking orange fence. And if that is what the Feds want, that's cool with me -- as long as The Org gets to choose who does Security! Thank fucking god we are not doing Burning Man this year. With the world on fire all around us, it seems a bit tone-def to hold a giant rave utopia party! I, for one, will be enjoying the week indoors under air-conditioning and rolling around in the heaps of cash I am saving by not going. I’m not attending a single workshop to expand my consciousness, not giving a single gift to anyone, and not being radical or self-reliant in any way. Fuck your Virtual Burn. I am Zapper Jones. I will see you in the Dust again . . . Sometime Somewhere in the Future!
Good luck everyone, have a great day, it’s Friday! Of note for Energy names (XLE, XOM, CVX), the IEA, in fitting with EIA, raised its 2020 oil demand outlook, but cut its 2021 view due to the improved outlook this year. However, it noted that risks were skewed to the downside. Of note for Casino names (CZR, WYNN, LVS) announced it will reopen its Bally’s on Las Vegas Strip on July 23rd. However, Nevada has ordered bars in Clark County, where Las Vegas is, to close on Friday. Of note for PC names (DELL, HPQ), Worldwide PC shipments rose +2.8% Y/Y in Q2 2020, totalling 64.8 million units, according to preliminary results by Gartner. IDC data reported Q2 20 shipments rose 11.2% Y/Y to 72.3mln units. “Early indicators suggest strong PC shipments for education, enterprise, and consumer, muted somewhat by frozen SMBs,” said Linn Huang, research vice president, Devices and Displays at IDC. “With inventory still back ordered, this goodwill will continue into July. However, as we head deeper into a global recession, the goodwill sentiment will increasingly sour”. Market share: HP (HPQ) 25%, Lenovo 24.1% (LNV GY), Dell Technologies (DELL) 16.6%, Apple (AAPL) 7.7%, Acer Group 6.7%.
DOW JONES
Merck & Co. (MRK) Animal Health Unit received FDA approval for its Bravecto Chews for dogs of 8 weeks and older; it is a once a month treatment for fleas and prevention of fleas. Pfizer Inc. (PFE) - BioNTech (BNTX), who is partnering with Pfizer to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, says they are confident it will be ready to get regulatory approval by year-end; expects to begin Phase 3 trials (N=30,000) by July-end. CEO said several hundred million doses could be produced even before approval, and over 1bln by the end of 2021.
NASDAQ 100
Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) plans to create at least USD 100mln in stock awards to retain the 900-plus employees of Zoox, the self-driving car startup it offered to buy last month, and can walk away from the deal if large numbers of them turn down job offers from the technology giant; AMZN is aggressively expanding into self-driving technology, announced in June it had agreed to acquire the Silicon Valley company, for USD 1.3bln in cash, which it hopes to close by September. Facebook, Inc. (FB) – A bug in the Facebook Software Developer Kit (SDK) is causing major third-party iOS apps, like TikTok and Spotify to crash on launch. The SDK enables account logins through Facebook and enable apps to integrate Facebook within the app for analytics and advertisements. Gilead (GILD) released additional data on remdesivir for COVID-19: was associated with an improvement in clinical recovery and a 62% reduction in risk of mortality; 74.4% of treated patients recovered by day 14 (vs 59% of patients receiving standard of care).
S & P 500
AbbVie Inc. (ABBV) - Allergan announced it received FDA approval for its supplemental Biologics License Application (sBLA) that supports the expanded use of BOTOX for the treatment of spasticity in patients aged two years or older. Energy Transfer’s (ET) fight to stave off a shutdown of the Dakota Access oil pipeline now heads to a federal appeals court after a district judge rejected a request to freeze an order that operations of the pipeline be halted by August 5th. Ford Motor (F) announced the 50% staffing restrictions imposed on plants producing car parts in Chihuahua, Mexico is not sustainable, as US plants are running at 100%. The US ambassador to Mexico stated Ford “may have to shut some US car plants as early as next week if they fail to receive Mexico-produced engines”. Simon Property Group Inc (SPG) and Authentic Brands are considering a bid for retailer Brooks Brothers Group, as is WHP Global, reports WSJ citing sources. The move would be the latest in which property owners are looking to purchase large renters who use their property to keep its business strong. Previously SPG has considered buying bankrupt JC Penney. Tyson Foods (TSN) is looking towards automated butchers amid the COVID-19 pandemic, according to WSJ.
OTHER
Barrick Gold (GOLD) sent a dispute notice to Papua New Guinea over the government’s refusal to extend a mining lease in the Porgera valley. Cannae Holdings (CNNE) and the Senator Investment group, who are trying to acquire CoreLogic (CLGX), have reportedly hired a proxy solicitor, DF King after CLGX rejected the unsolicited USD 7bln offer. Express (EXPR) announced 95% of its stores are open and its strategic transformation remains on track, while traffic and sales have steadily improved with e-commerce being positive in June. “Comparable sales for open stores sequentially improved from down over 50% in early May to approximately negative 15% by the third week in June. Traffic also improved, from approximately negative 65% in early May to approximately negative 30% by the third week in June. As COVID-19 cases began to spike in several states in late June, the Company saw declines in both sales and traffic in Arizona, California, Florida, and Texas, which were significant enough to impact total results.” Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSM) reported double-digit sales growth in June; sales were approximately USD 4bln, +28.8% M/M and +40.8% Y/Y. Revenues for the H1 period were around USD 21bln, +35.2% Y/Y. Tencent (TCEHY) is in exclusive talks to purchase Hong Kong game developer Leyou Technologies, according to CNBC. WD-40 (WDFC) Q3 20 (USD): EPS 1.06 (exp. 1.07), revenue 98.2mln (prev. 114mln).
Additional US Equity Stories
Intel Corp. (INTC) has reportedly delayed another major near-term server project, according to SemiAccurate, who reportedly has multiple sources confirming this new delay and none are optimistic about the new schedule. Gilead (GILD) Former FDA Commissioner Gottlieb says the Gilead (GILD) remdesivir data is very encouraging but needs to be confirmed in a prospective trial. United Airlines (UAL) reached a deal with a pilot union representing 13,000 employees regarding voluntary furloughs and early retirements. Nvidia Corporation (NVDA) had a PT upgrade at Rosenblatt Securities to USD 500 from USD 400, noting a secular shift into data-processing units and the co.’s entrance into new markets will drive revenue growth for the co. Carnival Corp. (CCL) preliminary EPS USD -6.07, Adj. EPS -3.30, revenue 740mln (prev. 4.84bln); expects future capacity to be moderated by phased re-entry of its ships, sold one ship in June, has agreements for the disposal of five ships. In total 13 ships expected to leave fleet represent a 9% reduction in current capacity. Reduced operating costs by over USD 7 billion on an annualized basis and reduced capital expenditures also by more than USD 5 billion over the next 18 months. H2 monthly average cash burn expected at USD ~650mln. The company currently expects only five of the nine ships originally scheduled for delivery in fiscal 2020 and fiscal 2021 will be delivered prior to the end of fiscal year 2021. Apple Inc. (AAPL) Apple Silicon 13.3-inch MacBook Pro to go into mass production in the fourth quarter of this year, but also now predicts we will see an Arm-based American Airlines (AAL) has threatened to cancel some Boeing (BA) 737Max orders, a sign of deepening financial stress in the aviation industry.
Another big one. I'm starting to lose my grip, ya'll.
TL;dr at the bottom. This will probably be long, because at this point it's less about my ongoing glitches and more about my state of mind. Up until this point, I've done pretty well keeping it together. Taking these events in stride, even. For whatever reason, this one has me genuinely freaked out. I don't know why, but it's been almost 2 days (I usually manage to get a grip and calm down in about 24 hours) and this time it's going the other direction. I'm getting MORE freaked out. So here I come, back to Glitch, to post for a bunch of people who may or may not think I'm completely full of shit at this point. Has anyone else posted this many "slips"? There must be others out there. I can't be the only one that has this happen repeatedly. Click on my profile for my other stories. The short version is, Over the last 15 years or so, I seem to "slip" or "jump" or whatever you want to call it into what I've come to think of as parallel universes that are very similar to, but not the same as, the one I started in. These seem to happen mostly while I'm driving. Sometimes I skip ahead in "space" - no differences that I'm aware of, but I physically relocate a few blocks - or in one case, roughly a hundred miles. There have been jumps in time (or maybe it was a parallel place, I don't actually know), like where I witnessed construction work being done, then went back to the same place a couple days later and it had never happened - and then went back a few days later, and it had been done again. There have been other little "glitches" in my life, some of which I've posted. But honestly I don't even care anymore. These "jumps" are getting to me. Anyway, here's the new one. Just as much detail as always. Sorry for those of you that are annoyed by that. Azure road is a little residential street that runs east-west in North Las Vegas. Running east, it dead ends at a large empty lot little past a road called Walnut. It picks up again on the other side of Lamb. For 5+ years, I lived just off the intersection of Lamb and Azure. To leave my neighborhood, you went west on Azure to a stoplight at Lamb, and turned either north or south - you couldn't go straight because Azure doesn't run between Walnut and Lamb - there's that big empty field in the way. We always knew it would punch through eventually, and something would get built on that lot - but it's been that way for years. I relocated in 2015 and a few times since after leaving that house, but I've been back in the area a few times. Nothing changed. A few months ago, my girlfriend moved into a rented room very near my old neighborhood - on the "other side" of Azure, maybe a mile directly west of my old place. I have my own place, but I spend more time at her place because her dog isn't allowed where I live. Anyway - point is, since April, I've been over there A LOT. And from her place, to get to the freeway or some other places, we go west to Losee road then north to Centennial, over to Lamb, and south again past Azure - right through "my" old intersection, because in case I haven't made this abundantly clear yet - AZURE DOESN'T GO THROUGH TO LAMB AND NEVER HAS. Sunday evening, I am returning to her place from working. I had a drop (Uber driver) a little ways south on Lamb, so instead of taking the freeway around I decided to just take Lamb up to Centennial and over. I pass through the intersection of Lamb and Azure - and there's a left turn lane. And Azure goes through. And that big empty lot? A full development. Literally dozens of single family homes in a gated community. Guys - the last time I passed by there was 6 days ago, and I will swear to whatever being you do or do not believe in, none of that was there. If there had been construction going on, I wouldn't have thought twice. Things get built FAST in Las Vegas. But not THAT fast. And there wasn't ever any construction. EVERYTHING WAS FINISHED. There are signs up promoting the new homes for sale. The landscaping is finished. Half of the houses are occupied, cars in driveways. And the road itself..? One side is worn pavement, the other lane is fresh. Like they paved one side during construction, then went in and widened and finished it after they were done. IN WHICH CASE AZURE WOULD HAVE BEEN AN OPTION IN THE INTERVENING TIME - but it hasn't been. Until Sunday. At least for me. I have driven past that intersection literally dozens of times in the last few months, and I've never even seen a bulldozer parked in the dirt. There is a zero percent chance i wouldn't have noticed. There's a nostalgia thing going on every time I pass there. Had I seen construction work, I would've been like "oh cool, they're finally finishing that stretch of Azure and building on that lot". I would have thought "oh cool, we can cut straight across Azure soon instead of going around". IT WOULD HAVE BEEN RELEVANT. I couldn't possibly have missed MONTHS of construction. Even if I somehow missed it a few times, I couldn't possibly have missed it EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. I passed through there until it was done. Dozens of houses, a renovated intersection, and a new stretch of road. In a neighborhood I travel frequently and with which I am intimately familiar. Girlfriend and her roommate say it's been that way for months. Specifically, she doesn't remember ever NOT passing through there to get to Lamb. I mention all the times we've driven the long way around and she's like - what are you talking about, why would we go that route? Lucky for me, she was in the car for two of my other teleports, so she doesn't think I'm COMPLETELY off my rocker. BUT WAIT - THERE'S MORE! The very next day, I'm working. I drive Uber in Las Vegas, which means I spend a LOT of time on the Strip. I am EXQUISITELY familiar with every single pickup and drop point on Las Vegas Boulevard. There isn't a single one I haven't been to MANY times. I can name every single resort and casino property and most of the other structures, in order, between the Strat and Mandalay Bay. Hell, all the way to the M, because south of Mandalay there really isn't much there. I can tell you where buildings were that aren't there anymore. Over 6k rides, literally thousands of which are on that stretch of road. Monday, I picked up a passenger at a large resort style condo complex immediately south of Hilton Grand Vacation called Sky Las Vegas. This is a substantial luxury condominium complex directly across the street from the failed Fontainebleau (now called The Drew, assuming they ever finish the damn thing). It's big. It's a beautiful building. It stands out. It's been there for years. And I've never seen it before in my life. As far as I'm concerned, there is still an empty lot next door to Hilton Grand. 20+ years in this town, watching things get imploded and built on the Strip, driving up and down that road for hours on end for over 3 years now not including my previous time spent before being a driver - I have never even HEARD of Sky Las Vegas. The new Harmon road construction project is coming along nicely though, so there's that. They're building the Harmon road expansion that I remember being built more than 10 years ago, that disappeared in one of my previous jumps. The ex wife that thought I was nuts when that happened is a little freaked out because she recalls me describing it to her in detail when it disappeared, and now she can see them building what she remembers me describing - and there's no way I could've known about it then. She's taking my Glitch stories a bit more seriously now. So that's cool I guess. I dunno why this one is cracking me. I should be used to this by now. Maybe because one is so close to what was literally home? Maybe because the other is a multi-hundred-million dollar project in a place with which I'm almost equally familiar? Maybe it's just stress in general. I dunno. But so far I can't shrug this off like I did my last ones. I'm really freaking out. I don't know what else to say. Thanks for reading. I need a drink. **TL;dr** There's a new road connection/intersection and an entire housing development in a place that I know like the back of my hand, where I previously lived for years, through which I still travel frequently, that has never been there before. Apparently it was completed months ago. I've never seen it before. My girlfriend swears she's driven through there WITH ME, many times. Around the same time that appeared, a can't-be-missed luxury condo complex on Las Vegas Boulevard called Sky Las Vegas appeared, that I'm told has been there for years. I have been a full time Uber driver in Las Vegas, working the Strip, for 3 years now. I've lived in this city for over 20 years. I have not only never picked up or dropped off there before (highly unlikely), but I've literally never seen it before. It didn't exist until Monday of this week as far as I'm concerned.
Sheldon Adelson's Las Vegas Sands in talks to sell Vegas Strip properties
This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 66%. (I'm a bot)
LAS VEGAS - Las Vegas Sands Corp. is considering selling its two hotel-casinos on The Strip, the company confirmed to the Reno Gazette Journal Monday. News of the potential sale comes at a time when Las Vegas Strip properties are struggling to attract visitors due to COVID-19 travel fallout. Las Vegas Sands Corp last week reported a third-quarter loss of $565 million, after reporting a profit in the same quarter last year. Following Bloomberg's report, the company's stock jumped more than 3%.'We're in a world of hurt'The disappearance of conventions in the wake of COVID-19 contributed to a second quarter loss of almost $1 billion for Las Vegas Sands. "Las Vegas cannot perform without return of these segments," said Las Vegas Sands President and COO Rob Goldstein in a July earnings call. His Las Vegas Sands Corp. is one of the largest casino and resort companies in the world with the Venetian and Palazzo resorts on the Strip and lucrative casinos in Macau.
Summary Source | FAQ | Feedback | Topkeywords: LAS#1VEGAS#2Sands#3company#4billion#5 Post found in /news. NOTICE: This thread is for discussing the submission topic. Please do not discuss the concept of the autotldr bot here.
Did The Mafia Blackmail FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover About Being Gay?
M. Wesley Swearingen, an FBI agent from 1951 to 1977, writes in his memoir FBI Secrets: An Agent's Expose about the long-standing rumors within the Bureau concerning the relationship between FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and Associate Director Clyde Tolson which include allegations that Hoover ignored the Mafia for decades because the wise guys had incriminating goods on the supposed lovers:
One year after arriving in Memphis, Hoover transferred me to Chicago, Illinois. I was thrilled – my mind was full of gangsters, Tommy guns, and the FBI's famous machine gun battles of the 1930s. It was clear to me from Chicago's newspaper headlines that gangsters ruled a Chicago underworld element in the 1950s because gangland style murders averaged close to 100 a year in the Chicago area. * * * But when I told my colleague and veteran agent Vince Coll of my big plans for Chicago, he said that Hoover did not recognize the existence of a mob in Chicago. According to Coll, Mafia leader Meyer Lansky's organization had enough on Hoover and Tolson, as closet homosexuals, that Hoover would never investigate the mob.
The allegations were fleshed out in Official and Confidential: the Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover by Anthony Summer. A review of the book ("Partners For Life") by Sidney Urquhart for Time magazine summarizes one alleged incident as follows:
Perhaps Summers' most bizarre revelation is an account provided by Susan Rosenstiel, the wife of a liquor distiller and gambling crony. Rosenstiel recalls attending what she thought would be an elegant private party at New York City's Plaza Hotel in the company of lawyer Roy Cohn, Hoover and others. Instead, Cohn introduced Rosenstiel to a woman named "Mary," dressed in a fluffy black dress, lace stockings and high heels. It was obvious Mary was no woman. "You could see where he shaved. It was Hoover," said Rosenstiel. Joined by Cohn, Hoover stripped down to a tiny garter belt and proceeded to have sex with two young boys. Cohn later joked about the evening. "That was really something, wasn't it, with Mary Hoover?"
The "two young boys" with whom Hoover allegedly had sex perhaps were provided by Ed "the Skull" Murphy who was a long-time Genovese associate involved in the crime family's gay bar and boy prostitution rackets in New York City. In Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked The Gay Revolution, David Carter writes:
John Paul Ranieri, a former prostitute interviewed for this history, provided critical testimony for corroborating and better understanding the larger implications of Murphy's criminal enterprises for gay history. Ranieri said that as a youth from Westchester County he had been forced by blackmail and Mafia-supplied drugs into a prostitution ring in which he remained active for three years before he escaped the mob's control. He claimed that a number of youths in the ring had disappeared after they got careless with talk, for while most of the customers were more or less average homosexual men with money, the regular clientele, according to Ranieri, also included famous men such as Malcolm Forbes, Cardinal Spellman, Liberace, U.S. Senators, a vice president of the United States, one of the most famous rock musicians, and J. Edgar Hoover. The mob's order, according to Ranieri, was strictly "Keep your zipper open and your mouth shut." Ranieri said that he met J. Edgar Hoover at private parties at the Plaza Hotel and that Hoover's name was never mentioned. Hoover was always in drag, and Ranieri said he could tell that the FBI director was sure that no one recognized him. Ranieri said that he had ensured his own survival by having in his possession a photograph of himself with Hoover, given to him by the photographer. How does the preceding information link Ed Murphy with J. Edgar Hoover? The connection is made evident in a news story written shortly after Hoover's homosexuality and transvestism became public. When [Anthony] Summer's book [Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover], was published [in 1993], a newspaper story about the 1960s national homosexual blackmail ring suddenly appeared after a quarter of a century of silence on the subject. Without mentioning Murphy's name, it quoted law enforcement sources who had worked on the case as saying that their investigation into the nationwide blackmail ring had turned up a photograph of Hoover "posing amiably" with the racket's ringleader and had uncovered information that Clyde Tolson, Hoover's lover, had himself "fallen victim to the extortion ring." After federal agents joined the investigation, both the photograph of Hoover and the documents about Tolson disappeared. * * * Very suggestive in this context is that Murphy would publicly say in 1978—before it became public information, as it did in the 1990s, that the Mafia had photographs of Hoover involved in sex acts—that he knew that J. Edgar Hoover "was one of my sisters."
Murphy's boys did have a habit of disappearing. For example, one Puerto Rican youth known as Tano with whom Murphy was sexually involved was kidnapped right off the streets never to be seen again according to one eyewitness to the incident as recounted by Carter in Stonewall. Curiously, Murphy also was a long-standing FBI informant according to a May 8, 1978 article ("Skull Murphy: The Gay Double Agent") by Arthur Bell for The Village Voice. Indeed, this article contained the interview in which Murphy expressly speaks of J. Edgar Hoover as one of his "sisters": "He was the biggest fuckin' extortionist in this country. He had presidents by the balls. He had a record on everybody and his brother." The allegations that Meyer Lansky had incriminating evidence against the FBI Director are particularly credible in light of the relationships among all the parties with political fixer Roy Cohn -- a fellow closet case who died of AIDS in 1986 -- at the center of it all. Cohn was a personal friend of Hoover during the 1950s and 1960s, and the two shared extensive correspondence directed to each other on a first-name basis including a September 1957 exchange on an article published by the Director entitled "Let's Wipe Out the Schoolyard Sex Racket." Ironically, only months earlier an apparent obscenity indictment against Cohn had been dismissed according to an FBI memo dated June 28, 1957 from Assistant Director Louis B. Nichols to Clyde Tolson:
Roy Cohn called 6-27-57 to advise that Neil Gallagher of the New Jersey Turnpike Commission represented him in connection with the return of an indictment charging the sale of obscene literature. Gallagher went before the Superior Court judge in Union County, New Jersey, Thursday afternoon and moved the dismissal of the indictment. The district attorney joined him in this recommendation and issued a public apology to Cohn.
Cornelius "Neil" Gallagher later became a U.S. Congressman from Bayonne, NJ until he lost the seat in 1972 after Life magazine ran an article alleging mob ties. The relationship between Hoover and Cohn is particularly troubling given that the FBI was fully aware that Cohn had ties to the most powerful bosses in the Mafia. For example, in 1964 federal prosecutor Robert Morgenthau was trying Cohn on corruption charges, and at the trial introduced excerpts of earlier grand jury testimony by Cohn. A March 27, 1964 article from The New York Times which the FBI contemporaneously clipped for its files on Cohn states:
The excerpts contained admissions by Mr. Cohn that he was acquainted with Geralde (Jerry) Catena, described by the Senate Rackets Committee as "No. 2 Man" in the Vito Genovese unit of the Cosa Nosta, and with Meyer Lansky, gangster. Mr. Cohn said he scarcely knew Lansky but that he had played golf two or three times with Catena.
Cohn further had represented the Stork Club which was Hoover's favorite stomping ground and Schenley Industries which was one of the country's largest liquor distillers. Louis Rosensteil was the president of Schenley Industries, and he had close ties to Meyer Lansky and Frank Costello. "In fact, on several occassions, Hoover was seen at the Stork Club fraternizing with people like Costello and Rosensteil" according to Peter J. Devico in The Mafia Made Easy. After Hoover's right-hand man Louis Nichols left the FBI in 1957, Cohn allegedly secured him a plum job making $100,000 a year at Schenley Industries although Nichols insisted in Hooveresque fashion that Rosensteil shunned the mob. Of couse, the best evidence that Meyer Lansky had the goods on the FBI Director is that the storied agency never laid a hand on the gangster who was a bootleg kingpin during Prohibition, later founded Murder Inc., and finally ran gambling operations in Las Vegas and Havana, Cuba for the Genovese family. At the time of Lansky's death in 1983 the FBI estimated that he had a net worth of $300 million, and yet during his long criminal career the G-men never nailed him on a single charge or recovered a single penny. Indeed, the FBI did not even start a file on Lansky until the 1950s, and a review of the file's sparse contents illustrates that the agency's efforts to target him -- a purported top hoodlum -- were half-hearted at best involving little more than the occasional wiretap and a sometimes surveillance. Indeed, the newspaper articles on Lansky which the FBI clipped were more informative on the mobster's activities than the investigator reports. Ironically, Lansky only was arrested in 1972 -- the same year Hoover died -- as a result of an IRS investigation involving an alleged skimming scheme from a Vegas casino, and even that indictment conveniently was dismissed because Lansky was considered too ill to prosecute.
JERRY'S NUGGET PLAYING CARDS Almost every hobby that involves collecting has a holy grail which every collector dreams of finding and owning in their personal collection. For some playing card collectors, the grail of collecting would be a sealed deck of original Jerry's Nugget Playing Cards in pristine condition. If you've spent some time in the world of playing cards, you'll almost certainly have heard of this famous deck, because name-dropping the famous "Jerry's Nuggets" often happens in discussion forums about cards. Owning an original deck of these is often mentioned as a badge of honour that cements your credentials as a serious collector. If you have one, it's likely a prized item in your collection, because it is one of the most iconic and valuable decks of cards there is from the latter half of the 20th century. These playing cards were first created in 1970 in order to be used at Jerry's Nugget Casino, which is located in Las Vegas, Nevada. The casino was founded by Jerry Lodge and Jerry Stamis in 1964, hence the name "Jerry". It's still owned and operated by the Stamis family today. But after being manufactured, the Jerry's Nugget playing cards were put into storage for around 20 years, and were never used on the casino's gaming tables. Why? Even the folks at the casino don't remember the reasons why. Was it because they wanted to keep in step with the other casinos in town that were using borderless Bee-backed cards at the time? Was it because the back design was too detailed or too simple, and could be marked too easily by card cheats? Who knows. At any rate, they were sometimes offered as complimentary gifts to guests who stayed at the casino, while the rest were eventually sold individually at the casino's gift store for as little as one or two dollars each. They finally sold out around 1999, and according to rumour the final case was purchased by an overseas buyer.. But with magician and playing card expert Lee Asher singing their praises and selling them on his website, and with cardists Dan and Dave Buck also getting on the bandwagon, using them in some of their cardistry videos, and vouching for them, demand only continued to grow. https://preview.redd.it/nkubo992c0e51.jpg?width=463&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=945cb8c6b15b6e823a43050d5cb9e82bc50c52a3 What made these playing cards special is that they were produced with a top-of-the-line grade of USPCC card-stock that was only produced for a limited period of time. It is thinner than most contemporary playing cards, and is simply not available today. What's more, modern printing methods simply can't replicate the original process used to produce these playing cards. This involved a cotton roller that would paint the embossing pattern on one side of the card, followed by a varnished finish that was applied by a dip coat technique. Environmental restrictions also mean that the chemical finish used for this has been abandoned. In short, technology has made these manufacturing methods completely obsolete, and this all means that it's just not possible for there to be anything quite like these decks ever again. That in itself wouldn't make them the stuff of legend. But Jerry's Nugget Playing Cards began to develop a legendary reputation for amazing handling qualities. Demand began to increase, and over time, they have become highly sought after by playing card collectors and by those with an interest in card flourishing. As demand increased, the price went up, and their growing scarcity means that today you can expect to pay up to $500 for a deck on the secondary market. As often happens in such cases, the story of Jerry's Nuggets Playing Cards began to attract some interesting side stories. There are reports about a large remaining haul of these playing cards being bought up from the gift shop, and held back by an unknown stranger who is sitting on what is now a valuable commodity. They also attracted the attention of counterfeiters, since the increasing price-tag suddenly made it viable to sell forgeries. Lee Asher has an extensive guide that contains information to help you identify illegal fakes, after sophisticated counterfeiters began flooding the market with them just over a decade ago. But all this has only served to add to the legend that is Jerry's Nugget Playing Cards. Today most playing card collectors and magicians have all heard of Jerry's Nugget Playing Cards, and consider them to be the stuff of legend: a unique product with legendary handling, that is hard to find, and impossible to reproduce. As the old adage puts it, it's something often imitated but never duplicated. And as the number of playing card collectors continues to grow, the appeal, scarcity, and value of a deck of authentic Jerry's Nugget Playing Cards only continues to increase. https://preview.redd.it/e6owf022c0e51.jpg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fb71ed6945e6968f0892ca68914f43ce5897b370 A RECREATION OF THE ORIGINAL But this doesn't end the story of the famous Jerry's Nugget playing cards. Given how much in demand these legendary decks were, it was only a matter of time before someone saw a business opportunity here. What about a reprint, to cater to the desire of modern collectors to own their own copy of Jerry's Nuggets? The idea was not a new one, and it appears that there have been other Jerry's Nugget decks produced besides the ones that have become the stuff of legend, including a small printing by USPCC around 2010. But in 2019 the market was ripe for producing something that would serve as a tribute and homage to the famous Jerry's Nuggets, while retaining as much of the original as possible. So a crowdfunding project was launched to produce an authentic recreation of the original Jerry's Nugget playing cards. Obviously such a deck could never be an exact replica, not only because printing methods made this impossible, but also because look-alike decks might only be abused by people seeking to make a quick buck by passing them off as a genuine vintage copy. The recreation project happened with the blessing of Jerry's Nugget Casino, and with the cooperation of the United States Playing Card Company (USPCC), and the Expert Playing Card Company (EPCC). The amount of support this Kickstarter received is in itself a testimony to the popularity of these iconic decks. It raised almost half a million dollars, with the support of over 4,000 backers. Two main versions of the deck were produced. The Modern Feel deck was produced by USPCC, with their popular thin-crushed stock preferred by many cardists. This means that its quality, feel, and handling performance is very similar to any other thin-crushed cardistry deck printed in their factories. But unlike most custom decks, the high volume of decks produced meant that USPCC could print these reproductions on the larger web press which they also use for big print runs of their Bicycle decks. The Vintage Feel deck was produced by EPCC, and was manufactured in China with what is known as their "JN Finish". This is a firmer and more snappy card stock than what USPCC uses, while also being somewhat thin, smooth, and yet very durable. In EPCC's estimation, these match the look and feel of the originals as close as anyone has been able to achieve. In reality, many have reported that they don't quite live up to this claim, and suggest that the cards tend to clump more quickly then a USPCC deck, and that intense shuffling of the red deck can cause some bleeding of the colour onto the card faces. My own experience with the Vintage Feel decks has been fairly positive, and I appreciate the thin card-stock, smooth feel, and snappy handling. It performs more similar to a typical USPCC deck than the Master finish decks from EPCC deck do, but with heavy use the coating will wear, making spreads and fan inconsistent, although the fact that the cards tend to cling together slightly under pressure makes it ideal for packet cuts and sleights like the double lift. https://preview.redd.it/42e9if37c0e51.jpg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=963e0b01412960904ac80af530bb2d2e8d277b2e So how do these decks compare with the original Jerry's Nugget decks from the 1970s in terms of looks? In the case of both decks, colour matching was used to recreate the iconic red and blue colours as closely as possible. The back design, court cards, and Jokers are all the same as the originals, as is the Ace of Spades (aside from some tiny numbers). There's also an off-center seal and a red tear strip on the plastic, all of which were distinctive features of the original deck as well. Both the Modern Feel and Vintage Deal decks also have a traditional cut. A difference that the Modern Feel decks have from the original Jerry's Nuggets is that they come with an extra two cards (a double backer and a blank card), since USPCC now prints decks with 56 cards instead of 54. The new deck is also clearly distinguished from the original deck since the bottom of the tuck box states "Modern Feel 1st Edition - 2019". The Vintage Feel deck shares one extra similarity with the original deck that the Modern Feel deck does not, namely the style of the long-tongue flap. This is a distinctive feature of the original tuck box, but couldn't be replicated with the Modern Feel decks due to the fact that USPCC has long discontinued this style of tuck design. And of course the unique and snappy stock of the Vintage Feel decks makes them look and feel different than a traditional USPCC printed deck, much like the original Jerry's Nuggets also had a unique touch about them. Due to the high level of crowdfunding, many extras were produced as part of the campaign for the recreated decks. The Modern Feel deck was produced in two additional colours, Teal and Coral, as well as a blue luxury foil deck, a stripper deck, and a gaff deck. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Jerry's Nugget Playing Cards, the year 2020 has seen the release of yet more colours for the Vintage Feel decks, making them available in Steel Grey, Black, Yellow. A Modern Feel deck in rose (pink) was also recently released as part of a collaboration with Riffle Shuffle Playing Card Company, while a purple deck is being released in conjunction with Penguin Magic. Suddenly, the market is full of Jerry's Nugget Playing Cards once again. But unlike the originals, they are now very affordable and readily available, which was one of the aims of this project. Now anyone can own their own deck of Jerry's Nuggets, without breaking the bank, with a recreation that is faithful to the striking and iconic design of the originals, and yet has the qualities and performance that the modern collector wants and expects. https://preview.redd.it/nw5fez68c0e51.jpg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=3c930544afcaf22fe8cb0ba63cb49b21c94fb4e5 CHICKEN NUGGET PLAYING CARDS At this point you might think there is little more to say about the famous Jerry's Nuggets. Not so, because there is one more important chapter to tell in this saga. This one, however, is a miniature comedy, and will especially appeal to those with a good sense of humour. Already back in 2016, and well before the concept of the recreated Jerry's Nugget decks appeared, Taiwanese magician and cardist Hanson Chien decided to create something very similar to the original Jerry's Nuggets, as somewhat of a joke: the Chicken Nugget Playing Cards. Hanson has extensive experience as a magician and a cardist, and magicians know a thing or two about achieving the impossible. As a result, the fact these classic decks could not be replicated was not about to stop him. He set about to recreate them in the form of a parody deck, that would serve as a tribute to the original and iconic Jerry's Nuggets, but at the same time serving as a witty satire that would poke fun at our love for fast food. Not surprisingly, especially because this was prior to the announcement of the official replicas in 2019, these were tremendously popular, due to the Jerry's Nugget look, as well as the amusing artwork. To produce the decks, Hanson set up his own playing card company, Hanson Chien Production Company (HCPC). He also used the exact colour specifications from the familiar red and blue originals, and he employed creative artist Limin for the artwork. It was important to retain as many of the distinctive features of the original decks as possible, so the Chicken Nuggets carefully replicate details such as the off-center tax stamp, the red tear-strip on the plastic wrapper, and the historical 1970 date inside the tuck box flap. Paper of the same weight and texture of the old tax stamp was used, with a similar design and shape. The card backs feature the familiar "oil derrick" design of the originals, but with an important difference: these now read "Chicken Nugget". But perhaps the biggest unique contribution that this parody deck makes is with the court cards. At first sight, everything seems very standard, until you look more closely at them. https://preview.redd.it/gxdhub8yb0e51.jpg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=accefe6496a22e0f7144967349b0514209d3fce2 Upon close observation, you'll see all kinds of details that parody our love for fast food. The royal characters that inhabit the court cards are consuming all kinds of junk food, including sweet things like ice-cream, chocolate, and donuts, snacks like potato chips and popcorn, plus American favourites like hamburgers, hot dogs, and french fries. Even noodles come in for punishment, as our court card friends are literally stuffing themselves with all kinds of unhealthy eats and drinks! The artwork will prove amusing even for people unfamiliar with the original Jerry's Nugget Playing Cards that these pay homage to. The court cards in particular are quite hilarious and well-drawn, and reflect a good sense of humor. Of course anyone who is familiar with the iconic Jerry's Nugget Playing Cards will especially appreciate the clever spoof that this deck is, while being a wonderful tribute to a classic and famous deck. In parodying the original, great attention has been paid to detail in all elements of the design, faithfully copying the exact specifications of the original wherever possible. The Joker gives us some indication about a serious message that underlies the amusing artwork, with this warning message: "Quit Junk Food. Make Life Good." As the creator wrote elsewhere during the crowdfunding campaign: "So while you're performing amazing magic, don't forget to rub your bellies and remind yourself to quit junk food." I appreciate this warning about the dangers of eating too much fast food and junk food - a message that today's culture needs to hear. The decks were printed in Taiwan, which is also where industry leaders like Legends Playing Card Company (LPCC) and Expert Playing Card Company (EPCC) produce their cards. The quality of the cards closely corresponds to the Diamond and Master finish used by these manufacturers, and given that the same factory in Taiwan is used for the printing, the look and feel of these cards is almost identical. They have a very firm spring, and are extremely durable. While they don't spread and fan as smoothly as a USPCC deck, they do have a quality embossed finish, and are particularly good for packet cuts, since the cards hold together well. It's not hard to see that a deck like this would be popular, and have a lot of cross-over appeal as a novelty item. It especially appeals to people who are already familiar with the iconic status of the Jerry's Nugget Playing Cards, and who can appreciate how this parody replicates the original. But anyone with a sense of humor can enjoy the amusing court cards and the fast-food spoof that is key to what this deck is about, giving it a broad appeal to card collectors and gamers too. https://preview.redd.it/guu9k8lyb0e51.jpg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=fddca43869ab90fa109fa9f3bc6bf879c19982f5 Due to the success of the original project, Hanson Chien was able to produce several special decks and unique packaging options, my favourite being the fast-food style brick box. Since the original campaign, the popularity of the deck has enabled it to be published in a number of other sizes and colours, including a deck with jumbo-sized cards, a limited edition black deck, a limited edition white deck, and a host of Chicken Nuggets themed novelty items. ANOTHER JERRY'S NUGGET Surprisingly, the story of Jerry's Nugget Playing Cards has one final twist. Just like prospecting for gold, in the world of playing cards and collecting, you never know when you're going to find another nugget. In this case, our "prospector" is Hanson Chien, creator of the Chicken Nugget decks, and the unexpected "nugget" that he acquired was a deck of Jerry's Nugget Playing Cards that hails roughly from a similar time as the original decks. The precise date when it was produced hasn't been established with any certainty, but it was produced by the Arrco Playing Card Company in Chicago. More significantly, the artwork has a different look. The artwork and design corresponds to the chips and merchandise used by the Jerry's Nugget Casino at the time when it opened in 1964. The findings were reported by Lee Asher in a 2018 article in Card Culture, the official periodical of 52 Plus Joker The American Playing Card Collectors Club. https://preview.redd.it/49wtcubpb0e51.jpg?width=509&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=6e2ce1e7100b37ea2992b91b04ac45dc1885c9f3 So is it possible that this is in fact the original Jerry's Nugget deck, and that what we've been describing all along as the "original" deck may in fact have been part of a second wave? Who knows. At any rate, where there's a nugget, perhaps there's a seam of gold to be found in those hills. Hanson saw another opportunity here, and towards the end of 2019, he launched a project to make another version of his Chicken Nugget deck, intended as a homage to this new find. It is a vintage styled version of his Chicken Nugget deck, in the alternative design and colours of the vintage Arrco Playing Card Company Jerry's Nugget deck. Hanson Chien describes it as a remastered version of the Arrco deck, and has marketed it under the label "New Vintage Chicken Nugget". Much like the recreated Vintage Feel Jerry's Nugget decks printed by EPCC, these will have a thinner and firmer card stock. But sometimes the twist in a tale comes back to bite you. Unfortunately for us, at this stage we don't know whether this latest twist will turn out to be a comedy or a tragedy. While the new decks are still being advertised on the Hanson Chien website, albeit with some production delays as a result of the COVID-19 crisis, the Kickstarter project behind the new decks seems to have run into trouble. A few months ago it was reported that this campaign has become the subject of an intellectual property dispute, and the rumour is that it was issued by Jerry's Nugget Casino. This isn't likely to stop the new decks being produced, mind you, given that Hanson runs his own printing company, and he has since successfully run an independent campaign to get them published. Comedy or tragedy? We don't know the final outcome of this latest twist just yet. But certainly the Jerry's Nuggets have provided us with a lot of entertainment along the way, and we can only be glad to see them getting revived interest and attention, and some spiffy new editions that give every collector the chance to add a recreation of this famous deck into their collection at a very affordable cost. https://preview.redd.it/aahdy5nnb0e51.jpg?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d274a33d2d7cc539d2f64d10d8065982cad4aeec Where to get them?
Las Vegas Strip is opening on June 4th. Every casino operator is going to be using and promoting the non invasive MARK thermal scanners for people to feel safe visiting. Expect huge PR from the CASINOS that is going to highlight these cameras. MARK is selling to malls , retail outlets and has sales in China and Japan along with the US. All these NDAs will become useless and shares will go up once people are aware of how many venues are going to be using this.
M. Wesley Swearingen, an FBI agent from 1951 to 1977, writes in his memoir FBI Secrets: An Agent's Expose about the long-standing rumors within the Bureau concerning the relationship between FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and Associate Director Clyde Tolson which include allegations that Hoover ignored the Mafia for decades because the wise guys had incriminating goods on the supposed lovers:
One year after arriving in Memphis, Hoover transferred me to Chicago, Illinois. I was thrilled – my mind was full of gangsters, Tommy guns, and the FBI's famous machine gun battles of the 1930s. It was clear to me from Chicago's newspaper headlines that gansters ruled a Chicago underworld element in the 1950s because gangland style murders averaged close to 100 a year in the Chicago area. * * * But when I told my colleague and veteran agent Vince Coll of my big plans for Chicago, he said that Hoover did not recognize the existence of a mob in Chicago. According to Coll, Mafia leader Meyer Lansky's organization had enough on Hoover and Tolson, as closet homosexuals, that Hoover would never investigate the mob.
The allegations were fleshed out in Official and Confidential: the Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover by Anthony Summer. A review of the book ("Partners For Life") by Sidney Urquhart for Time magazine summarizes one alleged incident as follows:
Perhaps Summers' most bizarre revelation is an account provided by Susan Rosenstiel, the wife of a liquor distiller and gambling crony. Rosenstiel recalls attending what she thought would be an elegant private party at New York City's Plaza Hotel in the company of lawyer Roy Cohn, Hoover and others. Instead, Cohn introduced Rosenstiel to a woman named "Mary," dressed in a fluffy black dress, lace stockings and high heels. It was obvious Mary was no woman. "You could see where he shaved. It was Hoover," said Rosenstiel. Joined by Cohn, Hoover stripped down to a tiny garter belt and proceeded to have sex with two young boys. Cohn later joked about the evening. "That was really something, wasn't it, with Mary Hoover?"
The "two young boys" with whom Hoover allegedly had sex perhaps were provided by Ed "the Skull" Murphy who was a long-time Genovese associate involved in the crime family's gay bar and boy prostitution rackets in New York City. In Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked The Gay Revolution, David Carter writes:
John Paul Ranieri, a former prostitute interviewed for this history, provided critical testimony for corroborating and better understanding the larger implications of Murphy's criminal enterprises for gay history. Ranieri said that as a youth from Westchester County he had been forced by blackmail and Mafia-supplied drugs into a prostitution ring in which he remained active for three years before he escaped the mob's control. He claimed that a number of youths in the ring had disappeared after they got careless with talk, for while most of the customers were more or less average homosexual men with money, the regular clientele, according to Ranieri, also included famous men such as Malcolm Forbes, Cardinal Spellman, Liberace, U.S. Senators, a vice president of the United States, one of the most famous rock musicians, and J. Edgar Hoover. The mob's order, according to Ranieri, was strictly "Keep your zipper open and your mouth shut." Ranieri said that he met J. Edgar Hoover at private parties at the Plaza Hotel and that Hoover's name was never mentioned. Hoover was always in drag, and Ranieri said he could tell that the FBI director was sure that no one recognized him. Ranieri said that he had ensured his own survival by having in his possession a photograph of himself with Hoover, given to him by the photographer. How does the preceding information link Ed Murphy with J. Edgar Hoover? The connection is made evident in a news story written shortly after Hoover's homosexuality and transvestism became public. When [Anthony] Summer's book [Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover], was published [in 1993], a newspaper story about the 1960s national homosexual blackmail ring suddenly appeared after a quarter of a century of silence on the subject. Without mentioning Murphy's name, it quoted law enforcement sources who had worked on the case as saying that their investigation into the nationwide blackmail ring had turned up a photograph of Hoover "posing amiably" with the racket's ringleader and had uncovered information that Clyde Tolson, Hoover's lover, had himself "fallen victim to the extortion ring." After federal agents joined the investigation, both the photograph of Hoover and the documents about Tolson disappeared. * * * Very suggestive in this context is that Murphy would publicly say in 1978—before it became public information, as it did in the 1990s, that the Mafia had photographs of Hoover involved in sex acts—that he knew that J. Edgar Hoover "was one of my sisters."
Murphy's boys did have a habit of disappearing. For example, one Puerto Rican youth known as Tano with whom Murphy was sexually involved was kidnapped right off the streets never to be seen again according to one eyewitness to the incident as recounted by Carter in Stonewall. Curiously, Murphy also was a long-standing FBI informant according to a May 8, 1978 article ("Skull Murphy: The Gay Double Agent") by Arthur Bell for The Village Voice. Indeed, this article contained the interview in which Murphy expressly speaks of J. Edgar Hoover as one of his "sisters": "He was the biggest fuckin' extortionist in this country. He had presidents by the balls. He had a record on everybody and his brother." The allegations that Meyer Lansky had incriminating evidence against the FBI Director are particularly credible in light of the relationships among all the parties with political fixer Roy Cohn -- a closet case who died of AIDS in 1986 -- at the center of it all. Cohn was a personal friend of Hoover during the 1950s and 1960s, and the two shared extensive correspondence directed to each other on a first-name basis including a September 1957 exchange on an article published by the Director entitled "Let's Wipe Out the Schoolyard Sex Racket." Ironically, only months earlier an apparent obscenity indictment against Cohn had been dismissed according to an FBI memo dated June 28, 1957 from Assistant Director Louis B. Nichols to Clyde Tolson:
Roy Cohn called 6-27-57 to advise that Neil Gallagher of the New Jersey Turnpike Commission represented him in connection with the return of an indictment charging the sale of obscene literature. Gallagher went before the Superior Court judge in Union County, New Jersey, Thursday afternoon and moved the dismissal of the indictment. The district attorney joined him in this recommendation and issued a public apology to Cohn.
Cornelius "Neil" Gallagher later became a U.S. Congressman from Bayonne, NJ until he lost the seat in 1972 after Life magazine ran an article alleging mob ties. The relationship between Hoover and Cohn is particularly troubling given that the FBI was fully aware that Cohn had ties to the most powerful bosses in the Mafia. For example, in 1964 federal prosecutor Robert Morgenthau was trying Cohn on corruption charges, and at the trial introduced excerpts of earlier grand jury testimony by Cohn. A March 27, 1964 article from The New York Times which the FBI contemporaneously clipped for its files on Cohn states:
The excerpts contained admissions by Mr. Cohn that he was acquainted with Geralde (Jerry) Catena, described by the Senate Rackets Committee as "No. 2 Man" in the Vito Genovese unit of the Cosa Nosta, and with Meyer Lansky, gangster. Mr. Cohn said he scarcely knew Lansky but that he had played golf two or three times with Catena.
Cohn further had represented the Stork Club which was Hoover's favorite stomping ground and Schenley Industries which was one of the country's largest liquor distillers. Louis Rosensteil was the president of Schenley Industries, and he had close ties to Meyer Lansky and Frank Costello. "In fact, on several occassions, Hoover was seen at the Stork Club fraternizing with people like Costello and Rosensteil" according to Peter J. Devico in The Mafia Made Easy. After Hoover's right-hand man Louis Nichols left the FBI in 1957, Cohn allegedly secured him a plum job making $100,000 a year at Schenley Industries although Nichols insisted in Hooveresque fashion that Rosensteil shunned the mob. Of couse, the best evidence that Meyer Lansky had the goods on the FBI Director is that the storied agency never laid a hand on the gangster who was a bootleg kingpin during Prohibition, later founded Murder Inc., and finally ran gambling operations in Las Vegas and Havana, Cuba for the Genovese family. At the time of Lansky's death in 1983 the FBI estimated that he had a net worth of $300 million, and yet during his long criminal career the G-men never nailed him on a single charge or recovered a single penny. Indeed, the FBI did not even start a file on Lansky until the 1950s, and a review of the file's sparse contents illustrates that the agency's efforts to target him -- a purported top hoodlum -- were half-hearted at best involving little more than the occasional wiretap and a sometimes surveillance. Indeed, the newspaper articles on Lansky which the FBI clipped were more informative on the mobster's activities than the investigator reports. Ironically, Lansky only was arrested in 1972 -- the same year Hoover died -- as a result of an IRS investigation involving an alleged skimming scheme from a Vegas casino, and even that indictment conveniently was dismissed because Lansky was considered too ill to prosecute.
M. Wesley Swearingen, an FBI agent from 1951 to 1977, writes in his memoir FBI Secrets: An Agent's Expose about the long-standing rumors within the Bureau concerning the relationship between FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and Associate Director Clyde Tolson which include allegations that Hoover ignored the Mafia for decades because the wise guys had incriminating goods on the supposed lovers:
One year after arriving in Memphis, Hoover transferred me to Chicago, Illinois. I was thrilled – my mind was full of gangsters, Tommy guns, and the FBI's famous machine gun battles of the 1930s. It was clear to me from Chicago's newspaper headlines that gangsters ruled a Chicago underworld element in the 1950s because gangland style murders averaged close to 100 a year in the Chicago area. * * * But when I told my colleague and veteran agent Vince Coll of my big plans for Chicago, he said that Hoover did not recognize the existence of a mob in Chicago. According to Coll, Mafia leader Meyer Lansky's organization had enough on Hoover and Tolson, as closet homosexuals, that Hoover would never investigate the mob.
The allegations were fleshed out in Official and Confidential: the Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover by Anthony Summer. A review of the book ("Partners For Life") by Sidney Urquhart for Time magazine summarizes one alleged incident as follows:
Perhaps Summers' most bizarre revelation is an account provided by Susan Rosenstiel, the wife of a liquor distiller and gambling crony. Rosenstiel recalls attending what she thought would be an elegant private party at New York City's Plaza Hotel in the company of lawyer Roy Cohn, Hoover and others. Instead, Cohn introduced Rosenstiel to a woman named "Mary," dressed in a fluffy black dress, lace stockings and high heels. It was obvious Mary was no woman. "You could see where he shaved. It was Hoover," said Rosenstiel. Joined by Cohn, Hoover stripped down to a tiny garter belt and proceeded to have sex with two young boys. Cohn later joked about the evening. "That was really something, wasn't it, with Mary Hoover?"
The "two young boys" with whom Hoover allegedly had sex perhaps were provided by Ed "the Skull" Murphy who was a long-time Genovese associate involved in the crime family's gay bar and boy prostitution rackets in New York City. In Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked The Gay Revolution, David Carter writes:
John Paul Ranieri, a former prostitute interviewed for this history, provided critical testimony for corroborating and better understanding the larger implications of Murphy's criminal enterprises for gay history. Ranieri said that as a youth from Westchester County he had been forced by blackmail and Mafia-supplied drugs into a prostitution ring in which he remained active for three years before he escaped the mob's control. He claimed that a number of youths in the ring had disappeared after they got careless with talk, for while most of the customers were more or less average homosexual men with money, the regular clientele, according to Ranieri, also included famous men such as Malcolm Forbes, Cardinal Spellman, Liberace, U.S. Senators, a vice president of the United States, one of the most famous rock musicians, and J. Edgar Hoover. The mob's order, according to Ranieri, was strictly "Keep your zipper open and your mouth shut." Ranieri said that he met J. Edgar Hoover at private parties at the Plaza Hotel and that Hoover's name was never mentioned. Hoover was always in drag, and Ranieri said he could tell that the FBI director was sure that no one recognized him. Ranieri said that he had ensured his own survival by having in his possession a photograph of himself with Hoover, given to him by the photographer. How does the preceding information link Ed Murphy with J. Edgar Hoover? The connection is made evident in a news story written shortly after Hoover's homosexuality and transvestism became public. When [Anthony] Summer's book [Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover], was published [in 1993], a newspaper story about the 1960s national homosexual blackmail ring suddenly appeared after a quarter of a century of silence on the subject. Without mentioning Murphy's name, it quoted law enforcement sources who had worked on the case as saying that their investigation into the nationwide blackmail ring had turned up a photograph of Hoover "posing amiably" with the racket's ringleader and had uncovered information that Clyde Tolson, Hoover's lover, had himself "fallen victim to the extortion ring." After federal agents joined the investigation, both the photograph of Hoover and the documents about Tolson disappeared. * * * Very suggestive in this context is that Murphy would publicly say in 1978—before it became public information, as it did in the 1990s, that the Mafia had photographs of Hoover involved in sex acts—that he knew that J. Edgar Hoover "was one of my sisters."
Murphy's boys did have a habit of disappearing. For example, one Puerto Rican youth known as Tano with whom Murphy was sexually involved was kidnapped right off the streets never to be seen again according to one eyewitness to the incident as recounted by Carter in Stonewall. Curiously, Murphy also was a long-standing FBI informant according to a May 8, 1978 article ("Skull Murphy: The Gay Double Agent") by Arthur Bell for The Village Voice. Indeed, this article contained the interview in which Murphy expressly speaks of J. Edgar Hoover as one of his "sisters": "He was the biggest fuckin' extortionist in this country. He had presidents by the balls. He had a record on everybody and his brother." The allegations that Meyer Lansky had incriminating evidence against the FBI Director are particularly credible in light of the relationships among all the parties with political fixer Roy Cohn -- a fellow closet case who died of AIDS in 1986 -- at the center of it all. Cohn was a personal friend of Hoover during the 1950s and 1960s, and the two shared extensive correspondence directed to each other on a first-name basis including a September 1957 exchange on an article published by the Director entitled "Let's Wipe Out the Schoolyard Sex Racket." Ironically, only months earlier an apparent obscenity indictment against Cohn had been dismissed according to an FBI memo dated June 28, 1957 from Assistant Director Louis B. Nichols to Clyde Tolson:
Roy Cohn called 6-27-57 to advise that Neil Gallagher of the New Jersey Turnpike Commission represented him in connection with the return of an indictment charging the sale of obscene literature. Gallagher went before the Superior Court judge in Union County, New Jersey, Thursday afternoon and moved the dismissal of the indictment. The district attorney joined him in this recommendation and issued a public apology to Cohn.
Cornelius "Neil" Gallagher later became a U.S. Congressman from Bayonne, NJ until he lost the seat in 1972 after Life magazine ran an article alleging mob ties. The relationship between Hoover and Cohn is particularly troubling given that the FBI was fully aware that Cohn had ties to the most powerful bosses in the Mafia. For example, in 1964 federal prosecutor Robert Morgenthau was trying Cohn on corruption charges, and at the trial introduced excerpts of earlier grand jury testimony by Cohn. A March 27, 1964 article from The New York Times which the FBI contemporaneously clipped for its files on Cohn states:
The excerpts contained admissions by Mr. Cohn that he was acquainted with Geralde (Jerry) Catena, described by the Senate Rackets Committee as "No. 2 Man" in the Vito Genovese unit of the Cosa Nosta, and with Meyer Lansky, gangster. Mr. Cohn said he scarcely knew Lansky but that he had played golf two or three times with Catena.
Cohn further had represented the Stork Club which was Hoover's favorite stomping ground and Schenley Industries which was one of the country's largest liquor distillers. Louis Rosensteil was the president of Schenley Industries, and he had close ties to Meyer Lansky and Frank Costello. "In fact, on several occassions, Hoover was seen at the Stork Club fraternizing with people like Costello and Rosensteil" according to Peter J. Devico in The Mafia Made Easy. After Hoover's right-hand man Louis Nichols left the FBI in 1957, Cohn allegedly secured him a plum job making $100,000 a year at Schenley Industries although Nichols insisted in Hooveresque fashion that Rosensteil shunned the mob. Of couse, the best evidence that Meyer Lansky had the goods on the FBI Director is that the storied agency never laid a hand on the gangster who was a bootleg kingpin during Prohibition, later founded Murder Inc., and finally ran gambling operations in Las Vegas and Havana, Cuba for the Genovese family. At the time of Lansky's death in 1983 the FBI estimated that he had a net worth of $300 million, and yet during his long criminal career the G-men never nailed him on a single charge or recovered a single penny. Indeed, the FBI did not even start a file on Lansky until the 1950s, and a review of the file's sparse contents illustrates that the agency's efforts to target him -- a purported top hoodlum -- were half-hearted at best involving little more than the occasional wiretap and a sometimes surveillance. Indeed, the newspaper articles on Lansky which the FBI clipped were more informative on the mobster's activities than the investigator reports. Ironically, Lansky only was arrested in 1972 -- the same year Hoover died -- as a result of an IRS investigation involving an alleged skimming scheme from a Vegas casino, and even that indictment conveniently was dismissed because Lansky was considered too ill to prosecute.
What A Day: Curious, Georgia by Sarah Lazarus & Crooked Media (04/23/20)
"Why don’t we just put everybody in a space outfit or something like that?" - Stephen Moore, economic advisor to the president and grown man
Mitch Better Have My Money
More than 4.4 million Americans filed new jobless claims in the last week, bringing the reported unemployment total over the past five weeks to 26 million. Faced with those numbers, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has decided it’s time to pump the brakes on any additional economic relief, and possibly force blue states and cities into bankruptcy, reminding us all why he's the most popular politician in America.
Members of the House returned to the Capitol to approve the $484 billion stimulus bill passed by the Senate earlier this week, modeling varying degrees of personal responsibility on the floor. The funding in that package is expected to be depleted within days: Banks have been swamped with small-business loan applications, and the bulk of the $310 billion being added to the program is already spoken for.
The House also voted to establish a select committee, led by House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn, to oversee the administration’s coronavirus spending. The text of the resolution actually gives the panel more far-reaching power than House Speaker Nancy Pelosi initially indicated—it has the authority to investigate Trump’s larger response and U.S. pandemic preparedness, including internal administration deliberations. Pelosi said today that it won’t actually...do that, at least not in the near future.
As Congress shifts its focus to the next major piece of coronavirus legislation, McConnell has suggested that perhaps instead of lawmakers allocating more funds for state and local governments on the brink of economic disaster, those governments should just go fuck themselves? McConnell, who has bizarrely characterized that federal help as “Blue State Bailouts,” said he’d rather invent a way for states to declare bankruptcy than approve more relief, a proposal that Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) today called “one of the really dumb ideas of all time.” More tellingly, McConnell is also at odds with President Trump and Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, who have both signaled that they’re on board with Democrats’ call to include that funding in the next bill.
In New York, preliminary results from antibody studies indicate that the state’s 250,000 confirmed cases of coronavirus may be just the tip of the iceberg.
Nearly 3,000 people across the state were randomly tested in supermarkets, and about 14 percent of them tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies. In New York City the rate was higher: 21 percent of roughly 1,300 people tested positive. The lag in testing left New York in the dark: A new model from researchers at Northeastern University suggests that there were thousands of infections in NYC, and four other major U.S. cities, long before testing revealed there was a problem.
Further south, Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) is forging ahead with his plan to reopen some nonessential businesses tomorrow, even after Trump abruptly threw him under the bus on Wednesday, saying he “strongly disagreed” with Kemp’s decision, a day after publicly praising him. (The coronavirus task force reportedly convinced Trump to reverse course.) Many business owners and workers in the state do not feel comfortable returning to work, but if they refuse, they risk losing their unemployment aid.
Even with unemployment numbers rising by the millions every week, an overwhelming majority of Americans understand that reopening the economy prematurely isn’t the solution. A Politico/Morning Consult poll from last weekend found that 76 percent of respondents felt social distancing measures should continue for as long as necessary. Kemp and reckless Republican leaders like him are ignoring public opinion in addition to national guidelines, and endangering public health.
Look No Further Than The Crooked Media
So far, 3,660 of you have used the call tool on https://votesaveamerica.com/call to get connected to your representatives in Congress and tell them that they need to include funding to make elections safe and accessible as part of their next coronavirus package. Keep them coming! Now we want to hear from you: why do YOU need safer voting options this year? Whether you have a preexisting condition that puts you at risk, or don’t feel safe volunteering at the polls, we want to hear your story. Send in a video to us at 323-405-9944 so we can share your story and send a message to Congress and the state governments about how important this is →
Under The Radar
Florida has distinguished itself as a nightmarish place to be unemployed. The state is one of the slowest in the country to process its jobless claims, which means hundreds of thousands of unemployed Florida workers have been waiting weeks to receive their first checks, and many haven’t even been able to file their claims. The state agreed to start accepting paper applications this month, after its unemployment website broke down under the volume of traffic. Florida’s GOP leaders have intentionally weakened its unemployment system over the last decade, leaving its workers particularly vulnerable in this crisis: The state’s unemployment benefits max out at $275 a week. Nearly all of the major battleground states in the 2020 election are experiencing higher-than-average layoffs. In addition to prying more relief funding out of Mitch McConnell’s cold bloodless hands, it will be on all of us to make sure those voters realize that this level of economic fallout, and the broken systems exacerbating it, were preventable.
In a New York Times op-ed this week, Dr. Richard Levitan described volunteering at New York’s Bellevue Hospital for 10 days. Levitan shared a new insight into what makes COVID pneumonia uniquely dangerous: Unlike most pneumonia patients with very low oxygen saturation (hypoxia), many COVID-19 patients don’t feel short of breath until they’re close to respiratory failure. That seems to be a result of the peculiar way the coronavirus attacks the lungs, and when patients breathe faster and harder to compensate for their “silent hypoxia” without realizing it, their lungs sustain further damage. That may explain why so many patients on ventilators ultimately die: They didn’t get to the hospital until their pneumonia was well advanced. Levitan recommended more widespread use of pulse oximeters to detect hypoxia early. Since the op-ed was published, pulse oximeters have become impossible to find, which Levitan says is no cause for panic. (Hospitals don't use the same devices, so this isn't an N95 mask situation.) Think of it like a thermometer—something you should probably have in your home eventually.
What A Sponsor
Finding a watch that’s stylish, bold, and built to last can cost a pretty penny. Vincero watches is changing that. They believe you deserve to look good no matter your budget. With over 21,000 5-star reviews from verified customers, you know it’s stress-free shopping with fair and honest prices. Plus, shopping has never been easier with their sitewide sale - save up to 20% on any of their products for a limited time!
Is That Hope I Feel?
Publix has launched an initiative to purchase milk and fresh produce from struggling farmers, and donate it directly to Feeding America food banks. Braskem America workers voluntarily lived at the factory for 28 days, producing tens of millions of pounds of the raw materials needed for PPE. Ruth's Chris Steak House, Sweetgreen, and King Sushi announced they’ll return the small-business loans they received from the Payroll Protection Program. Yelling at companies on the internet works! A federal appeals court ruled that Detroit students (and by extension, all children in the U.S.) have a fundamental right to a basic education. Virginia has become the latest state to end prison gerrymandering, the practice of counting incarcerated people where they’re detained, rather than at their last known residence.
M. Wesley Swearingen, an FBI agent from 1951 to 1977, writes in his memoir FBI Secrets: An Agent's Expose about the long-standing rumors within the Bureau concerning the relationship between FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover and Associate Director Clyde Tolson which include allegations that Hoover ignored the Mafia for decades because the wise guys had incriminating goods on the supposed lovers:
One year after arriving in Memphis, Hoover transferred me to Chicago, Illinois. I was thrilled – my mind was full of gangsters, Tommy guns, and the FBI's famous machine gun battles of the 1930s. It was clear to me from Chicago's newspaper headlines that gansters ruled a Chicago underworld element in the 1950s because gangland style murders averaged close to 100 a year in the Chicago area. * * * But when I told my colleague and veteran agent Vince Coll of my big plans for Chicago, he said that Hoover did not recognize the existence of a mob in Chicago. According to Coll, Mafia leader Meyer Lansky's organization had enough on Hoover and Tolson, as closet homosexuals, that Hoover would never investigate the mob.
The allegations were fleshed out in Official and Confidential: the Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover by Anthony Summer. A review of the book ("Partners For Life") by Sidney Urquhart for Time magazine summarizes one alleged incident as follows:
Perhaps Summers' most bizarre revelation is an account provided by Susan Rosenstiel, the wife of a liquor distiller and gambling crony. Rosenstiel recalls attending what she thought would be an elegant private party at New York City's Plaza Hotel in the company of lawyer Roy Cohn, Hoover and others. Instead, Cohn introduced Rosenstiel to a woman named "Mary," dressed in a fluffy black dress, lace stockings and high heels. It was obvious Mary was no woman. "You could see where he shaved. It was Hoover," said Rosenstiel. Joined by Cohn, Hoover stripped down to a tiny garter belt and proceeded to have sex with two young boys. Cohn later joked about the evening. "That was really something, wasn't it, with Mary Hoover?"
The "two young boys" with whom Hoover allegedly had sex perhaps were provided by Ed "the Skull" Murphy who was a long-time Genovese associate involved in the crime family's gay bar and boy prostitution rackets in New York City. In Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked The Gay Revolution, David Carter writes:
John Paul Ranieri, a former prostitute interviewed for this history, provided critical testimony for corroborating and better understanding the larger implications of Murphy's criminal enterprises for gay history. Ranieri said that as a youth from Westchester County he had been forced by blackmail and Mafia-supplied drugs into a prostitution ring in which he remained active for three years before he escaped the mob's control. He claimed that a number of youths in the ring had disappeared after they got careless with talk, for while most of the customers were more or less average homosexual men with money, the regular clientele, according to Ranieri, also included famous men such as Malcolm Forbes, Cardinal Spellman, Liberace, U.S. Senators, a vice president of the United States, one of the most famous rock musicians, and J. Edgar Hoover. The mob's order, according to Ranieri, was strictly "Keep your zipper open and your mouth shut." Ranieri said that he met J. Edgar Hoover at private parties at the Plaza Hotel and that Hoover's name was never mentioned. Hoover was always in drag, and Ranieri said he could tell that the FBI director was sure that no one recognized him. Ranieri said that he had ensured his own survival by having in his possession a photograph of himself with Hoover, given to him by the photographer. How does the preceding information link Ed Murphy with J. Edgar Hoover? The connection is made evident in a news story written shortly after Hoover's homosexuality and transvestism became public. When [Anthony] Summer's book [Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover], was published [in 1993], a newspaper story about the 1960s national homosexual blackmail ring suddenly appeared after a quarter of a century of silence on the subject. Without mentioning Murphy's name, it quoted law enforcement sources who had worked on the case as saying that their investigation into the nationwide blackmail ring had turned up a photograph of Hoover "posing amiably" with the racket's ringleader and had uncovered information that Clyde Tolson, Hoover's lover, had himself "fallen victim to the extortion ring." After federal agents joined the investigation, both the photograph of Hoover and the documents about Tolson disappeared. * * * Very suggestive in this context is that Murphy would publicly say in 1978—before it became public information, as it did in the 1990s, that the Mafia had photographs of Hoover involved in sex acts—that he knew that J. Edgar Hoover "was one of my sisters."
Murphy's boys did have a habit of disappearing. For example, one Puerto Rican youth known as Tano with whom Murphy was sexually involved was kidnapped right off the streets never to be seen again according to one eyewitness to the incident as recounted by Carter in Stonewall. Curiously, Murphy also was a long-standing FBI informant according to a May 8, 1978 article ("Skull Murphy: The Gay Double Agent") by Arthur Bell for The Village Voice. Indeed, this article contained the interview in which Murphy expressly speaks of J. Edgar Hoover as one of his "sisters": "He was the biggest fuckin' extortionist in this country. He had presidents by the balls. He had a record on everybody and his brother." The allegations that Meyer Lansky had incriminating evidence against the FBI Director are particularly credible in light of the relationships among all the parties with political fixer Roy Cohn -- a fellow closet case who died of AIDS in 1986 -- at the center of it all. Cohn was a personal friend of Hoover during the 1950s and 1960s, and the two shared extensive correspondence directed to each other on a first-name basis including a September 1957 exchange on an article published by the Director entitled "Let's Wipe Out the Schoolyard Sex Racket." Ironically, only months earlier an apparent obscenity indictment against Cohn had been dismissed according to an FBI memo dated June 28, 1957 from Assistant Director Louis B. Nichols to Clyde Tolson:
Roy Cohn called 6-27-57 to advise that Neil Gallagher of the New Jersey Turnpike Commission represented him in connection with the return of an indictment charging the sale of obscene literature. Gallagher went before the Superior Court judge in Union County, New Jersey, Thursday afternoon and moved the dismissal of the indictment. The district attorney joined him in this recommendation and issued a public apology to Cohn.
Cornelius "Neil" Gallagher later became a U.S. Congressman from Bayonne, NJ until he lost the seat in 1972 after Life magazine ran an article alleging mob ties. The relationship between Hoover and Cohn is particularly troubling given that the FBI was fully aware that Cohn had ties to the most powerful bosses in the Mafia. For example, in 1964 federal prosecutor Robert Morgenthau was trying Cohn on corruption charges, and at the trial introduced excerpts of earlier grand jury testimony by Cohn. A March 27, 1964 article from The New York Times which the FBI contemporaneously clipped for its files on Cohn states:
The excerpts contained admissions by Mr. Cohn that he was acquainted with Geralde (Jerry) Catena, described by the Senate Rackets Committee as "No. 2 Man" in the Vito Genovese unit of the Cosa Nosta, and with Meyer Lansky, gangster. Mr. Cohn said he scarcely knew Lansky but that he had played golf two or three times with Catena.
Cohn further had represented the Stork Club which was Hoover's favorite stomping ground and Schenley Industries which was one of the country's largest liquor distillers. Louis Rosensteil was the president of Schenley Industries, and he had close ties to Meyer Lansky and Frank Costello. "In fact, on several occassions, Hoover was seen at the Stork Club fraternizing with people like Costello and Rosensteil" according to Peter J. Devico in The Mafia Made Easy. After Hoover's right-hand man Louis Nichols left the FBI in 1957, Cohn allegedly secured him a plum job making $100,000 a year at Schenley Industries although Nichols insisted in Hooveresque fashion that Rosensteil shunned the mob. Of couse, the best evidence that Meyer Lansky had the goods on the FBI Director is that the storied agency never laid a hand on the gangster who was a bootleg kingpin during Prohibition, later founded Murder Inc., and finally ran gambling operations in Las Vegas and Havana, Cuba for the Genovese family. At the time of Lansky's death in 1983 the FBI estimated that he had a net worth of $300 million, and yet during his long criminal career the G-men never nailed him on a single charge or recovered a single penny. Indeed, the FBI did not even start a file on Lansky until the 1950s, and a review of the file's sparse contents illustrates that the agency's efforts to target him -- a purported top hoodlum -- were half-hearted at best involving little more than the occasional wiretap and a sometimes surveillance. Indeed, the newspaper articles on Lansky which the FBI clipped were more informative on the mobster's activities than the investigator reports. Ironically, Lansky only was arrested in 1972 -- the same year Hoover died -- as a result of an IRS investigation involving an alleged skimming scheme from a Vegas casino, and even that indictment conveniently was dismissed because Lansky was considered too ill to prosecute.
Video Slot Machines vs. Mechanical Reels! Which slot machine should you select to play or own? IN THE NEW AGE http://InTheNewAge.com Big sale on; #slotmachines, #slot #machine, #casino #games, #slot #machines, #arcadegames, #arcade #machines, #videogames, #video #games, #pinball, #pinball #machines, jukeboxes, #jukeboxes Now, let us contrast #video #slot #machines to Reel #slot #machines: Video slot machines have actually been the fastest-growing section of the casino market for greater than a years currently. Games with new bells and also whistles, bonus occasions, totally free rotates, area play, also 3-D imaging are presented all the time. It seems almost funny reviewing the very first time I saw a slot machine with video reels. It was a jampacked Saturday evening, as well as I overlooked a row of slot machines that was just loaded with players, with the exception of what appeared to be one empty game in the middle of the row. With a couple of bumps and also a couple of "pardon me's," I made my method to the game, as well as discovered the reason it was empty. It was the only video game in a row full of machines with mechanical reels. Gamers did not trust the primitive very early video slots, which had weak graphics as well as tried to imitate three-reel have fun with none of the reward enjoyable developed into today's games. Currently there are a lot of players prepared to play the video games, but from time to time I will certainly still obtain an e-mail or a call from a player that simply does not trust them. "They're computer systems," is the typical lament, "as well as computers can be programmed to do anything." Guess what? Games with mechanical reels are computerized, too. What you see on the reels is just what the game's random number generator tells the game to present, equally as what you see on the display of a video screen is what the RNG tells the game to present there. The games are heavily controlled as well as should experience gaming labs to have their randomness validated. Or, are they? Are they actually? Think what, I have some intriguing news for you! Even though legally, the slot machines are intended to have a built-in arbitrary generator in which is supposed to disallow any individual servicing the slot machine to manually set the as well as. But, let me tell you something regarding computer systems and ALL MODERN-DAY SLOT MACHINES! There is NO BEST SYSTEM! Definition, if the casinos really intended to, they might readjust the slot machines in their support. Nevertheless, I doubt any of the high-end casinos on the Vegas strip would do anything like this, however, as for the older parts of Las Vegas, and also especially in the Indian booking casinos, in which have their own different laws, one might ever understand. But, is this bad news? That relies on just how you check out it, so, let me describe what I imply. As well as by this, one can feasibly begin WINNING A LOT OF MONEY! Without me making any kind of complaints climate incorrect or true, and also furthermore, ensuring any type of monetary MONEY benefits, we have MANY consumers coming to our site looking for the very same slot machine they have actually been dipping into the casinos. And from this, since they can use their very own money and also get in back, they have all day and all night to play the slot machines repetitively, thus, keeping an eye on acquainted patterns. What I suggest is, probably they see a Bally, an IGT, or a WMS slot machine that tends to pay back jackpots after every 20 or 30 rotates. Or, perhaps one would observe every time they (the gamer) presses the ticket switch, therefor, squandering, the slot machine seems to pay-back less than it did before cashing out their hard-earned jackpots. Currently, probably this is rubbish, or, probably it is not. But, having you slot machine can definitely be a large amount of enjoyable and excitement in the comfort of your very own office or home. Here is a partial checklist of our incredibly popular slot machines. Bally video slot machines: Davinci Diamonds SLOT MACHINE, Cleopatra 2 IGT Slot Machine Bally electro-mechanical slot machines: Stars and also Pubs Quick Hits Bally Slot Machine, Bally Quickhits Wild Red 777 Slot Machine, Dime Craze Bally Slot Machine. IGT Video Slot machines: Davinci Diamonds SLOT MACHINE, Lucky Larry's Lobstermania 2 IGT Slot Machine, Game King IGT Slot Machine. Williams Video Slot machines: Excellent Eagle 2 Williams Slot machine, Invaders from the Planet Moolah Williams Slot machine Additionally, all the slot machines we offer consist of money acceptors that approve all U.S currency and also pay back by hand or pay back a ticket vouchers, same as the casinos. Likewise, you can purchase a slot machine stand, and the slot machines are completely shopped, ensured functioning to your complete satisfaction! Some would certainly even declare by exercising day and night playing their slot machine, they had the ability to go back to the casino, play the exact same exact slot machine, and win enough money to spend for the slot machine they had actually acquired! WOW, just how cool would that be? Again, these are insurance claims. Additionally, even if I recognized the reality, possibly I should maintain it a trick? I am uncertain. However, here is a list of items we sell at IN THE NEW AGE! Game room products: Casino slot machines, casino video poker machines, keno machines, arcade machines that include over 4,000+ famous arcade games like; Pacman, Dual Dragon, Street Fighters, Metal Slug, Area Invaders, Asteroids and also 1,000' But do not fret, we did not forget about you pinball machine gamers. We market a digital pinball machine (video pinball) that includes over 2,000 famous pinball tables like: Street Fighters, Batman, Spiderman, 8 Ball Deluxe, Pinbot, Wickedness Knievel, Comet and other! Additionally, the Vpin additionally plays arcade games like Pacman, Galaxian and also even more! As for jukeboxes, we sell Rock-Ola jukeboxes. And yes, these are the classic timeless bubbles that were popular in the 1950's. Rock-Ola makes CD jukeboxes, vinyl-45 jukeboxes, as well as digital downloadable Songs center jukebox! Make certain to visit our site at: IN THE NEW AGE http://InTheNewAge.com #slot #machines, #poker #machines, #slotmachine, #slotmachines,
What Happens to the older Slot Machines Used in Casinos?
What Happens to the older Slot MachinesUsed in Casinos? He casinos are afraid players will determine just how to win, yet we have a remedy! IN THE NEW AGE http://InTheNewAge.com Slot machines are superseded by new and also improved versions at an almost yearly price. Game-makers are regularly drawing out fresh designs that either assistance much more games or take up much less space on the casino flooring-- occasionally both. Include the games that did not catch on with players and you are liable to find much of last year's slot supply gathering dust in the cellar of the casino parking garage. Yet where do they go from there? With any luck not right into the hands of the economic sector. Afterall, if a person were able to play the same slot machines for free for a number of hours daily, there's an opportunity they may have the ability to identify the slot machines weak points, by learning its patterns, referring to a video slot machine naturally! #slot #machines to buy-- Bally slot machines-- WMS slot machines IGT slot machines According to the Board of Enforcement of the Nevada Gaming Control Panel, "Old machines may be destroyed with local recycling facilities or stripped for parts and also used on various other slots. Non-restricted areas that hold a representative's permit are not called for to educate the Board of this method. However, documents of destruction/sales should be preserved for bookkeeping objectives. Non-Restricted/Restricted places without a supplier's certificate are required to send in writing to the Board a request for authorization to damage gaming devices and also include their stock list. " Slot machines might be sold, per Gaming Policy 14.180 & 14.330 (offered on the GCB internet site) and the types are submitted to the Board appropriately." However there's life for slots after Las Vegas and also Atlantic City, as Scientific Games' Supervisor of Sales Dwayne Dawson informs us. "We've seen recently that some larger operators will transition older slots to second- or third-tier residential properties within their profile-- for instance, moving a five-year-old slot machine from Las Vegas to an additional market that may not attract the clients the Las Vegas building commands. " For slot machines that we possess, such as wide-area progressives, when they no more come to be a possession we can deploy, we offer these to the second market. They might use them for spare components or move them to another part of the globe where an older product, to us, could be a newer item for that market. " As well as sometimes," Dawson ends, "we junk the slot machine when there's no market suitable. The game might be so distinct or a licensed product that we can not redeploy it, so scrapping is one of the most sensible choice. We collaborate with business that specialize in ditching to ensure all relevant regulations are complied with in the disposal. That is, we just don't toss them in the dumpster." Boyd Gaming Supervisor of Communications David Straw validates this. "In many cases, we offer 'retired' machines to wholesalers that generally resell them to abroad gaming drivers. Likewise, there are a number of online suppliers are accredited to market our old stock like Bally slot machines, IGT slot machines, as well as WMS slot machines. One such firm is called THE NEW AGE. Other times, we use the machines as a trade-in towards the acquisition of new systems. And in a few instances, we will certainly make use of the machine for spare parts for older models. " If we are not able to offer or trade in the machine, there is a regulator-approved process in each jurisdiction for destroying it, yet certainly, we attempt to tire various other alternatives first. The one point we do not is sell machines directly to other operators or enthusiasts-- we constantly resolve straight game room business like IN THE NEW AGE, however there is an arrangement that must be carried out. The contract states the retailer will assure to offer the slot machines for the function of recreational use just! Adds MGM Resorts International chief representative Alan Feldman, "I think they're all leased [machines] now. The adjustments in the machines are coming so quick that I believe it is the only method to not be stuck with old modern technology. When the machines go back to the manufacturer, I believe they're either re-leased or marketed outright to what I would certainly call the additional market: smaller casinos in the U.S., international casinos, and also raciness in the U.S., to name a few." So old slot machines never pass away; they simply function their means down the food chain. Below the casino industry are machines offered to the general public. Google "used slot machines" and you will develop plenty of sites primarily a few of the bigger slot machine stores like IN THE NEW AGE as well as a couple of others. Visit a certified slot machine dealer such as IN THE NEW AGE! IN THE NEW AGE markets several game room products consisting of but not restricted to: Slot machines, video poker machines, arcade machines, arcade games, pinball machines, game tables, jukeboxes and also even more! IN THE NEW AGE http://InThenewAge.com
The New Age of Arcade Gaming-- 4,000 & 1 #Arcade #Machines!
The New Age of Arcade Gaming-- 4,000 & 1 #Arcade #Machines! What? All traditional arcade games ever before made from the 70's-- 2,000's in one machine! IN THE NEW AGE http://InTheNewAge.com That's proper, we have entered a new age of arcade gaming! Finally, multigame #arcade #games, #arcade #machine with over 4,000 classic arcade games inside 1 arcade game cabinet! #slotmachines #slot #machines #poker #machines This is your possibility to build the best #mancave with #arcade #arcade #machines, #arcade #games, #slot #machines, #pinball #machines, as well as #jukeboxes! Learn more: Ok, so if your like me, you matured as a teenager during the 1980's, indicating you were born sometime during the very early to mid-1960's, consequently, you remember the days of going to a neighborhood arcade and playing arcade games like Pacman, Ms. Pacman, Vermin, Asteroids, Area Invaders, Protector and also mor on one solitary arcade game cabinet. However, let us state you were like my kid Jimmy, he was birthed 1982, as a result, he matured playing video arcade games like Double Dragon, Road Fighter, Teen Mutant Ninja Turtles, Temporal Kombat as well as lots of others. Nonetheless, now that we are all well right into our adult years, me someplace in my mid 50's, and also my son a boy 37-years of age, we still think of experiencing again the glory days of the arcade games we played after institution ever before day. Yet, if you take a look around at some regional game room shop that offers these old used timeless arcade games, they set you back around $2,000, right? And, for just one solitary arcade game. Ok visualize this situation. So currently, you are board to fatality due to the fact that you are informed by the Guv of your state NOT TO LEAVE your home unless you definitely need to. In addition, also after the Covid-19 pandemic has leveled out, or mysteriously vanished, for years, travel and also vacationing will never be the same as it was pre-covid-19 am I right? So currently, maybe you aspire or prefer to construct a man cavern, family members cavern, or as we like to call it at IN THE NEW AGE, a "Staycation," (In the house holiday.) So, currently you start looking around for some arcade games, a pinball machine, an actual however used casino slot machine, as well as even a jukebox. Wow, would not that make an outstanding family-cave in your home? Nonetheless, by the time you build up even 2 or 3 arcade games, allow us state, Ms. Pacman, Donkey Kong, and also Road Competitor, you would be spending at least $5,000 for some rebuilt used arcade games. Nonetheless, regardless of what the local game room individual informs you, or that E-bay site without any means to speak to the vendor by telephone informs you, you are still purchasing as well as arcade game that goes to the very least 20-30 years of ages, am I deal with? As well as, what does that mean? It LEADS TO TROUBLES! PREVIOUSLY! Multigame #Arcade #Machines-- Arcade games-- Arcade Machines We at IN THE NEW AGE, sell an entire line of multigame arcade machines called the "Classic Arcade System." With is this line of arcade game machines, we provide 4 various cabinet designs. We provide the full-size stand-up arcade games with a huge 32" LCD check, and also smaller sized stand-up arcade games with 22"-- 26" LCD screens. However, if you like the sit-down arcade cabinets, we sell possibly the world's only cocktail sit-down came with a 32" LCD screen. Likewise, we sell pub-style arcade games, and also arcade games inside wine barrels. Now, just how amazing is that? BUT DELAY! All these different style arcade games currently consist of 4,000+ traditional arcade games like Pacman, Ms. Pacman, Donkey Kong, Road Fighter, Dual Dragon, Steel Slug, Mortal Kombat, TMT Turtles, NBA Jam, and some many more. #Pinball #Machines Pinball Machines Do not stress, I did not ignore you pinball individuals. We market a virtual pinball machine that includes over 2,000 timeless pinball games like Pinbot, Eight Sphere Deluxe, Avengers, Road Fighters Batman, Comet, Blackhole, and also more. In addition, our online, or additionally referred to as, video pinball machines also consist of almost 1,000 classic arcade games like Pacman, Galaxian as well as a lot more. So, just how do you play arcade games on a pinball machine? It is straightforward, due to the fact that our video pinball machine consists of much more that flipper switches and a round plunger. Our virtual pinball also includes 2 joysticks, WOW! No, I ask you, how awesome is that? Yet, do not worry, I know a few of you like to attempt your good luck at the casino am I right? Slot machines: #slot #machines We sell actual slot machine like Bally slots, WMS slot machines, as well as IGT slot machines. The slot machines we market were actual slot machines used, as well as even used today in the casinos on the Las Vegas strip like the Stratosphere hotel casino, the MGM casino, Caesars Palace Las Vegas Hotel & Casino, and also others. Jukeboxes: #jukeboxes Do not your jukebox lover fear, we did not forget about you. Afterall, what would certainly an at home game room be without some music right? We market the worlds best and also just UNITED STATES made jukebox, and I am speaking of Rock-Ola jukeboxes. Rock-Ola jukebox business builds 3 various sorts of jukeboxes. The make the uncommon and tough to discover vinyl-45 record playing jukebox, CD jukeboxes, and also the well-known Rock-Ola Music Facility digital downloadable jukebox. However hey, do not stress, despite the fact that these are all new jukeboxes, they are the genuine nostalgic bubbler jukeboxes that were so preferred back in the 1940's, the 1950, s and beyond. Now, if this has not been a lot of ENJOYABLE as well as INTERESTING knowledge to take in for a day, we market even more intriguing and very sought after proudest at our business internet site. I encourage you log onto our web site TODAY! Regards, Jimmy Smith Sale affiliate IN THE NEW AGE http://InTheNewAge.com arcade games for sale, jukeboxes available for sale, pinball machines to buy, slot machines up for sale #slotmachines, #videogames, #jukeboxes #online #casinos, #online #gambling at: WIN MONEY HERE http://winmoneyhere.com
How To Protect Yourself Against Cheating in Home Games
I could have written a whole series about cheating, but decided to try and be as brief as possible. One of the reasons that we willingly pay the rake in casino poker is for game protection. The casino executes this in many ways — automatic shufflers, standard dealing procedures, surveillance, and of course, by providing professional dealers. Above all else, a professional dealer’s number one priority is to maintain the integrity of the game and ensure protection for all of the players. If you’re playing in a home game, you probably won’t be provided with the luxury of a professional dealer. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t educate yourself about the various cheating methods commonly used in home games. Don’t go into a game blind — protect yourself. There are many different types of cheating methods, both old and new. The most recent cheating method to hit the market involved an intricate electronic system that used an infrared camera and infrared ink. The system originated from China and involved a certain level of know-how that was required to obtain and use the system. The camera was disguised as a cell phone, car key fob, shirt button, etc. It was almost impossible to detect unless you were knowledgeable in electronics, since the camera would transmit the data to the receiver over a normal, unencrypted radio channel. This system, which cost anywhere from around $2,000 - $10,000 was revealed at DEFCON a few years ago. For those who don’t know, DEFCON (Defense Convention) is a conference where the top cyber security professionals meet and share their findings for the year. One team in particular explored this modern infrared cheating system and came to the conclusion that it was being professionally manufactured and could have only been produced by at least a few different experts in their respective fields ranging from software development, digital image analysis, hardware and microchip development, etc. The bottom line was that the team at DEFCON reasonably presumed there to be a rather lucrative market for this system. It stands to reason that if there’s enough money involved, given the opportunity, cheating will always have the potential to take place. You should always remember that, as it’s a universal truth of crime and deception. Now, it’s very unlikely that your home game will employ a cheating system to such a high degree. But remember, it’s always a possibility. The one giveaway that could reveal that this high-end system was being used, is that it required the dealer to cut the deck on the table, and leave the long edge of the cards untouched for about 2 seconds. This was so that the camera could scan the deck (marked with infrared ink) and determine the winner, given that the right data was input into the software. Normally, the dealer will cut and then instantaneously pick up the deck and deal. You can do some more research on your own if you’re interested in this system and how it was potentially used in one of the card rooms on the strip, in Las Vegas. There was a bit of a scandal stemming back a few years ago. Now that you have an idea of the lengths that people will go to in order to cheat, let’s talk about some of the cheating methods you’re more likely to encounter at your local home game. Ironically, these methods are mostly sleight of hand techniques that are hundreds of years old. Magic and poker cheating go hand in hand. I’ll start off by saying that unless you are playing with a group of guys who you trust and know very well, I would advise you to never play in a self-dealt game. There are just too many opportunities and variables to deduce who the cheater is. Self-dealt games aside, there are a few things that should always be present to help ensure game protection. There should always be a cut card to conceal the bottom card on the deck, and you should always take note of the types of cards being used. If you’re playing for any stakes that are $1/$2 or bigger, then the game should be using either KEM, Copag, or Modiano cards. The most popular Bicycle Rider Back cards were a common choice for magic shops to offer as a marked deck for sale. Luckily, the USPCC (the producer of Bicycle cards) no longer allows third party companies to produce marked decks. I personally have a few in my collection, and while the marking system isn’t the most complex, it’s easy to miss unless you know what to look for. If your home game has a set dealer, be sure to watch the way they handle the cards. They should be employing the standard shuffling procedures that all casino card rooms use — riffle, riffle, strip cut, riffle, and cut. Unless the dealer is a skilled card mechanic, it would be very difficult to beat this standard shuffling procedure. You should never allow an overhand shuffle, as it’s very easy to cull cards and false shuffle this way. Culling cards is sleight of hand jargon for obtaining particular cards from the deck to be later put into a certain position. A false shuffle is exactly what it sounds like — a shuffle that looks real but doesn’t change the order of the deck. There are many types of false shuffles. Some of them retain the order of the entire deck, others retain the top half, some the bottom half, and so on. The bottom line is that an overhand shuffle is a red flag. The most important thing that you must make sure happens, and I can’t stress this enough, is that the deck is cut before the deal. While there are ways to nullify a legitimate cut, and even execute a false cut that looks incredibly genuine, you should be alright as long as you closely watch the deck get cut. If you see any noticeable gaps within the deck, which would allow someone to easily cut to a specific card, then you should be on the lookout for what’s called a “gambler’s crimp”. This technique puts a special bend (crimp) in a card, allowing the thumb to catch it and cut to it. You should also make sure that the dealer isn’t doing anything out of the ordinary like burning a card before the action is complete, or rolling the deck. Rolling the deck simply means not holding the deck level. Most amateur dealers will roll the deck at some point, usually while pulling in bets, however, it’s also one way to peek at the next card. Now that we’ve discussed cards to a sufficient extent, let’s talk about chips and bets. No one should ever splash the pot, this is to ensure the proper amount of money was put in. In addition, all bets should be pulled in after the betting round is complete, unless you are heads up in a split-pot game. An unethical player might pull back a chip or two, if given the opportunity. Finally, and this is paramount, make sure that you watch the rake! This is absolutely the most common way that you will be cheated. Dealers are sometimes instructed by the host of the game to over-rake in big pots, when it is less noticeable. Always ask what the rake and structure of the rake is so that you know how much should be coming out of the pot. If you encounter a dealer taking too much rake, be aware that sometimes it is simply a mistake. I would advise you to not hastily accuse a dealer of raking too much. Instead, discreetly approach the host of the game, away from the table. If you see overraking occur more than once, then you either have an incompetent dealer, or you’re being cheated. Always make sure you are paying attention to the handling of the cards and to the chips being put into and pulled out of the pot. This is one of the best defenses against being cheated — it’s much less likely to happen when the cheater is aware that they are being closely watched. One method I haven’t mentioned yet is something called signaling. This is simply a form of collusion. Players will covertly signal to each other in various ways. Unfortunately, there’s no way to know how they are doing it until you discover some type of pattern. If you find you are consistently being “sandwiched” out of a pot by the same two guys, yet the hand never goes to showdown, then this should be another red flag. Signaling is one of the more obvious cheating methods, and as such isn’t used as often as the others. Any decent poker player would be able to figure out that the action makes no sense, as it pertains to the hand. In conclusion, I would advise that you only play in games that have a good reputation. The more players who you are personally acquainted with, the better. The biggest advantage you can have is personally knowing the host of the game. If you trust them, then it eliminates a majority of the various cheating methods that could be used. That doesn’t mean a particular player won’t try and mark cards or short the pot, however, it does mean that the more costly ways of being cheated won’t be possible. Getting cold decked requires more than just the dealer being involved. Always remember that you never have to play in any game. You have nothing to gain and only something to lose if you continue to play in a game that doesn’t seem honest. Make sure that you always pay attention, and keep in mind that you are putting your own money at risk. That alone should be enough to keep you cognizant of what is going on.
View photos of the 11 condos and apartments listed for sale in The Strip Las Vegas. Find the perfect building to live in by filtering to your preferences. Eldorado Resorts is strongly considering the sale of a Las Vegas Strip casino after finishing its acquisition of Caesars Entertainment next year, company officials said. Las Vegas had a string of blockbuster casino deals the past few years as investors pumped billions into properties on or near the Strip. Now the Tropicana is up for grabs, in a business climate ... Private-equity firm Blackstone is exploring a sale of the Cosmopolitan hotel and casino in Las Vegas, the only major operating casino on the Strip to hit the market in more than a decade. Las Vegas Strip Condos for Sale. The Las Vegas Strip is internationally known as one of the most amazing places to live in! This area offers an unmatched atmosphere and an active lifestyle in the middle of the desert. The Las Vegas Strip condos are located between hotels Tropicana and Sahara. aming and Leisure Properties confirmed Tuesday morning that Tropicana on the Las Vegas Strip is up for sale. Gaming and Leisure properties purchased the Tropicana in April from Penn National Gaming. Joseph Jaffoni with Gaming and Leisure Properties investor relations said while there's no known price tag for the property yet, the value of the 35 acres on the Las Vegas Strip holds high value. A 130-acre property located south of the Las Vegas Strip is now available for $300 million. It was the planned site of an $800 million extreme sports complex, called the Edge, that was scrapped. Tropicana Las Vegas Officially for Sale Again, Penn National Expected to Part with Operating Rights. Posted on: January 12, 2021, 07:38h. Last updated on: January 13, 2021, 09:59h. 3,889-room, 68-story hotel Fontainebleau Las Vegas was expected to include: 95,000 sq ft casino 60,000 sq ft spa 3,300-seat performing arts theater 1,018 condo-hotel units 180,000 sq ft of retail space 400,000 sq ft of indoor and outdoor conference space 24 restaurants and lounges The cost to finish the construction maybe between $600 to $800 million. There are over 600 units of condo suite ... Areas > LAS VEGAS STRIP Condos For Sale . The Las Vegas Strip, the most popular and intriguing area of the city, is home to world-class hotels, casinos, restaurants, and some of the most stunning high-rise condos. Most condos on The Strip have the amenities of a luxury hotel, while having the advantages that only an owned residence can bring.
Vegas Breaking News - A Major Strip Entertainer is ...
Plans announced to sell MGM Grand on Las Vegas Strip. Plans announced to sell MGM Grand on Las Vegas Strip. ... Do you know about BALLY'S Casino in Las Vegas? - Duration: 10:20. Living in Las ... Panorama Towers Las Vegas Strip High-Rise For Sale $449K 2 Beds 2 Baths 1,431 sqfthttp://www.lasvegascondoinsider.com Panorama Towers Las Vegas Unit 31... officially the City of Las Vegas and often known simply as Vegas, is the 28th-most populated city in the United States, the most populated city in the state ... #lasvegasstripdriveatnight, #lasvegasstrip, #lasvegasdriveSaturday Night Drive on a virtually empty Las Vegas Strip. Almost no one walking on the strip and v... Bally's Las Vegas - Exploring The Casino Floor Vlog 33Walking around the casino floor at Bally's Las Vegas the famous casino and hotel on the LasVegas Strip.... Las #Vegas #Sands shocked many with the announcement that they may be selling their Las Vegas operations completely. They want about $6 billion for the Strip... A major Las Vegas casino is for sale, and an iconic Las Vegas entertainer is in hospice care with terminal cancer. Help fund more quality content? 👉 Facemas... Filming location of "Sam's" Las Vegas home from the movie CASINO.My sites:http://www.openyourdoorandgoexplore.com/http://www.facebook.com/aimlessadventuresht... #THROWBACK #LASVEGAS #SLOTSTHE LAS VEGAS STRIP OR A HENDERSON CASINO?!!! EPIC SLOT MACHINE VIDEOMore videos, here are a few huge wins from my channel:A HUGE ... Cosmopolitan may be for sale on Las Vegas Striphttps://www.reviewjournal.com/business/casinos-gaming/cosmopolitan-may-be-for-sale-on-las-vegas-strip-1643199/...
