[quote=bearishgurl]
I don’t understand how someone can continue to gamble on a “margin” or a “future-borrowed” acct at a casino in the US, without leaving collateral.
It seems as if some casinos are just allowing credit to those whom they think are “good for the money” without any vetting to see if this is really so :=0[/quote]
Believe it. It’s very easy for known gamblers to get very high markers at most casinos. The more known of a big gambler they are, the higher markers they will get. No collateral needed if they know you.
I agree with you that it’s bull$hit that the casinos kept letting her gamble. But they don’t care about people that are addicted to gambling. Also, for all we know, she probably told them she had much more so she could keep gambling so they thought she had almost unlimited funds.
Imagine if you have a reputation of losing millions upon millions of dollars to the casino. They will embrace you, not shun you. That’s how the gambling industry works. You can’t blame them for her losing $50 million.
The entire concept of a casino is to get the “whale” (which she was) to keep betting and coming back over and over. Sure, whales will have their up days. But if you keep gambling long enough, you will always give it back to the house. That’s how the casinos work.
It’s very difficult for people like this to quit while they are ahead and stay away. You will almost NEVER see that happen. And if the numbers are anywhere even close to correct in the newspapers (which who knows if it is) it sounds like she won quite a bit of the time as well but just turned around and lost it. Win/lose/win/lose cycles.
I have friends that are big time gamblers in Vegas. They aren’t addicted to it but I remember one birthday weekend my buddy who was a big time lawyer back home (but a nobody in Vegas) at the time was playing blackjack with me.
He was on the mother of all good luck streaks. He was probably up about $150,000. We had to have been sitting there maybe 10 hours straight. I was up a few thousand and left the table early in the morning. I went to go take a nap and came back a few hours later.
He was still there at the table. Not only did he lose the $150,000 but he got a marker for another $50,000 that he lost. He said he only showed a business card to get the marker. I’m not sure if that was true or not. The casino was just happy that he lost it all and more.
I guess the upside is we did comped for a few free dinners. LOL.
