Casino Massacre

On the night of October 1, 2017, Stephen Paddock, a 64-year-old man from Mesquite, Nevada, opened fire upon the crowd attending the Route 91 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada. It Took Me Like 2 Hours To Make This Please Don’t Have This Damn Video Flop.

The Las Vegas Police Department released their final report on the deadly shooting spree carried out by Stephen Paddock from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Casino Hotel that killed over fifty people and injured over 600 others. They seem mystified about why Paddock would do such a thing.

Reports indicate that Paddock’s wealth diminished from about two million dollars to about half a million in his last two years of his life, much of which was lost to gambling. Sycophants of the gambling industry, the shills that write for or about the casinos, referred to Paddock as a “responsible gambler,” or a “professional gambler.” Video poker, his favorite game, produces no experts. Computer programming determines the outcome of every game the instant the “Play” button is pushed. The cards the player uses has zero influence on the outcome of the game. The computer is not limited to a 52-card deck, so it can use any cards desirable to get the predetermined outcome. Video poker does not produce “professional gamblers,” only consistent losers.

The truth is that Stephen Paddock was a gambling addict that had his life destroyed by his gambling addiction. Several psychologists, including Phillip Kronk, M.S., Ph.D., have described Paddock as a gambling addict whose life was out of control.

Gambling addicts who have had their lives ruined do extreme things, with an alarming number of them taking human life–usually their own. The suicide rate among gambling addicts is three times higher than the suicide rate among cocaine addicts, and about 80% of gambling addicts carry out ideation of their own suicide, concocting elaborate, specific scenarios of their death. Paddock was an extreme example of the self-destructive inclination of gambling addicts by taking many lives with him. We can speculate about why he took this unusual, extreme course, but the fuse that set it off was gambling addiction.

To many people, and a fair number of experts, all of this is fairly obvious. Why did the Las Vegas Police Department fail to recognize this explanation? The gambling industry, including casinos, is a corrupting influence. Many writers have written about the corrupting influence that the casino gambling has had on the governmental and social institutions in Las Vegas, including the police force (eg., “New Documentary Reveals Major Coverup and Corruption in Las Vegas Police Department,” Liz Posner, Alternet). They are heavily invested in keeping the well-oiled gambling machine working smoothly, pulling in the tourists and generating their salaries and pay-offs.

The gambling industry talks about “responsible gaming” and “entertainment gamblers,” but they are superfluous to their business model. It is swell established that over half of their income comes from problem gamblers. Their business model is dependent on gambling addicts. Their prosperity–even their very survival–depends on gambling addicts. Any institution that routinely and callously destroys lives to increase their wealth produces monsters.

Monsters, like the executives at MGM Mandalay Bay Casino, care little that their actions ruin lives and contribute to the death and misery of many people. If that sounds extreme, consider the law suit that MGM Resorts International has lodged against the families of the dead and injured in the massacre that took place outside their hotel. Not only do the victims have to deal with their initial grief and loss, but they now face legal action against them that will subject them to more emotional and financial trauma.

Three sentences encapsulate the story around the police report. Stephen Paddock was a gambling addict. Gambling addiction was the spark that ignited the massacre at the MGM Mandalay Bay Hotel. The Las Vegas Police are doing a “whitewash” to cover up the true cause of the massacre to protect the gambling industry in Las Vegas.

It’s time for the government to get out of the predatory gambling racket.

Dr. Guy Clark, chairman
Stop Predatory Gambling New Mexico

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A court on Wednesday approved a settlement totaling $800 million from casino company MGM Resorts International and its insurers to more than 4,400 relatives and victims of the Las Vegas Strip shooting that was the deadliest in recent U.S. history.

The action makes final a deal settling dozens of lawsuits on the eve of the third anniversary of the mass shooting that killed 58 people and injured more than 850 at an open-air concert near the Mandalay Bay resort.

“By the grace of God, myself and my family are going to be OK,” said Stephanie Fraser, a plaintiff in the lawsuit from La Palma, California. “I needed to be able to protect our kids.”

Clark County District Court Judge Linda Bell, in her brief order, cited “near-unanimous participation in the settlement among potential claimants.”

Authorities said more than 22,000 people were attending an outdoor music festival when a gunman firing military-style weapons from windows on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay rained rapid-fire bullets into the crowd.

Fraser’s husband of 13 years, Brian Fraser, a vice president at a mortgage company, died after being shot in the chest as they danced while country music singer Jason Aldean performed.

“Brian is missed beyond words by all of us — all of our family and all of our friends,” Stephanie Fraser told The Associated Press. The couple had four children and stepchildren. She and her attorney, Dan Robinson, declined to say how much they’ll receive in the settlement.

“With this coming to an end, it brings closure and allows us to put pieces back together,” Fraser said. “Brian would want that for us.”

MGM Resorts, owner of the hotel and the concert venue, acknowledged no liability. It will pay $49 million, while its insurance companies will pay $751 million.

Casino Royale Massacre

“We are grateful that the decision brings families, victims and the community closer to closure,” the company said in a statement. It noted the anniversary of the Oct. 1, 2017, event, calling it “a time of great sadness and reflection.”

Memorial ceremonies are scheduled Thursday at several venues in Las Vegas, including a reading of the names of the slain beginning at 10:05 p.m. — the time the first shots rang out.

Casino Massacre Game

Attorney Robert Eglet, the plaintiffs’ lawyer who spent a year arranging the settlement with clients, legal firms and attorneys in at least 10 states, said the amounts to be disbursed will be determined by two retired judges and he’s hopeful that payments will begin going out by the end of the year.

“There’ve been no objections and we expect no appeals,” Eglet told The Associated Press. “We’ll send out notices of the order. After 30 days the $800 million will be deposited.”

The case will be dismissed at that time, he added.

“Our firm and the other leadership firms hope it helps victims and their families find some sense of closure and healing,” said Mark Robinson Jr., a California attorney representing Fraser and more than one-third of the shooting victims.

Eglet previously said that everyone involved “recognized there are no winners in long, drawn-out litigation with multiple trials where people and the community are reliving the event every time we try a case.”

A line-by-line list of victims, identified by their initials only, runs for more than 170 pages of a 225-page civil complaint filed Sept. 9 seeking compensation and punitive damages from MGM Resorts. It accused the casino company of negligence, wrongful death and liability in the 2017 shooting.

Plaintiffs came from nearly every state in the U.S., at least eight Canadian provinces, the United Kingdom, Iran and Ireland.

In various lawsuits, victims and families accused MGM Resorts of failing to protect people at the concert venue or stop the shooter from amassing an arsenal of weapons and ammunition over several days before he opened fire.

Millions of dollars could go to the most severely and permanently injured, Eglet said, depending on factors including age, number of dependents, type of injuries, previous and future medical treatment, and ability to work.

A minimum $5,000 would go to each person who filed a claim for unseen injuries and did not seek medical attention or therapy.

Court filings in the case don’t mention the gunman, Stephen Paddock, who killed himself before police closed in.

Casino Massacre New Orleans

Las Vegas police and the FBI determined the 64-year-old retired accountant and high-stakes poker player meticulously planned the attack and acted alone. They theorized he may have sought notoriety, but said they never determined a clear motive for the attack.