Where did the Las Vegas Mass Murderer's Money Come From?

One of the puzzles about the mass murderer in Las Vegas is the source of his money.

His brother characterizes him as "very wealthy" and that "$100,000 is no big deal".

His real estate holdings holdings have been estimated as worth several millions of dollars.

He paid cash for his latest real estate, and gambled up to a million dollars a year, according to a real estate agent who dealt with him. From the dailymail.co.uk:

The 64-year-old, who opened fire slaughtering 58 people at a country music festival at the weekend, bought his 2,000 sq ft home in Mesquite, Nevada in 2014.

Real estate agents said Paddock told them his income came from gambling and decided quickly that he wanted to take the house because of its privacy and commanding hilltop view. He then paid for the two-bedroom $369,022 property in cash.

His brother says he was well known at lots of casinos, and they "comped" (that is gave) him lots of valuable things, such as hotel rooms and various services, to keep him coming back. From nbcnews.com:

There were 16 Currency Transaction Reports, or CTRs, filed for Paddock in recent weeks. The Treasury Department and the IRS mandate that casinos file the reports for "each transaction in currency involving cash-in and cash-out of more than $10,000 in a gaming day."

The reports don't show whether Paddock won or lost or both on the days in question. They do show that on same days there were multiple transactions.

A source familiar with the investigation told NBC News that Paddock was a frequent player "with the highest status" at Caesars Entertainment properties in Las Vegas.

Mathematically, it is highly unlikely that he "earned" a million or more a year in income by gambling. It is possible to make a lot of money gambling... if you own the casino or control the venue.

There are no indications the mass  killer owned the casino or had his own high stakes private games. In private games he could use skill to bring in large amounts of untraced cash.

Casinos do not keep "comping' people who consistently take large amounts of money out of their holdings. They go to a lot of trouble to identify people who do this, known as "card counters" and to ban them from casinos.

It is likely the mass killer lost tens, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, maybe more. That leads us back to the question. Where did the money come from?

Could the mass killer be a real estate investment whiz, someone who was just lucky in creating an income of hundreds of thousands, if not millions of dollars a year?

Not impossible, but not likely.

It appears the mass killer has not worked a regular job since the 1980's. Where does his wealth come from? Thirty years of high living, international travel, and massive gambling in casinos. He was an accountant, a talented one, it appears, from the people who hired him when he was a young adult.

Perhaps his wealth has been overstated.

Perhaps we have only seen the tip of the iceberg, and there are uncounted millions more.

There are many unconventional sources of wealth that could be laundered through casino gambling. Here are a few. Those with imagination can think of others.

1. He was a source of intelligence for a government or governments, who paid in cash.

2. He installed a money trap into an early computer program, and it feeds him one cent per transaction from a number of financial institutions.

3. He was blackmailing one or more wealthy people, at a rate low enough to be sustainable.

4. He was involved in the drug trade.

5. He found one of the many "lost gold mines", and kept it secret.

6. He was a talented con man, and used the casinos to launder his take.

7. He was a talented player of the "liability lottery", where people sue to make hundreds of thousands of dollars in false claims. (this one seems unlikely because he lost a "slip and fall" lawsuit against Comopolitan Hotel).  Those transactions would not be in cash.

Maybe he was just a lucky investor who kept hitting the jackpot. 

It could be, but that is not the way to bet.

©2017 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

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