Posts Tagged ‘Gambling’

Can The Stock Exchange Guru Lead You To Your Next Fortune?

January 9th, 2010

Forecasting your way around the stock market
I play the stock market for 2 reasons: I enjoy it and I like making money without working. I guess I’m a gambler at heart but I don’t have the guts or the wherewithal to go to the casinos so I play on the stock exchange under the maybe-false impression that I can’t lose everything as I could in the casino. When the market is rising I float on a cloud and when it is falling I feel depressed, but my stake is small and should the worst happen, I can afford to lose it. At the moment my cloud is flying high in the sky.

My stock exchange car.
I used to drive a stock exchange car. Some years ago we sold our house and I was flush with money. I decided to invest a few thousand dollars in stocks and one evening I came across a company called Yahoo. I knew the name from my computer activities so I bought a hundred shares at $15 each. They began to rise. Then there was a rights issue and I suddenly had 150 shares and the price kept going up. It reached $117 before my nerve broke and I sold the shares, rushed downtown and bought a brand new car. What a coup, I thought, a free car, bought at the cost of 2 phone calls to a broker. I doubly enjoyed that car for years.

Our old friends
Three years ago we visited old friends in Canada. She was desperately ill after a stroke and her husband refused to leave her even though they had a full-time care giver. I asked him how he passed the time and he led me to his study which contained a long worktop and a few computers. “I play the markets,” he said. He belonged to one of these share advisory services and faithfully followed their tips, playing with enough money to do everything they suggested. The market was rising steadily in those days and so was the value of his portfolio. He tracked everything and the walls were plastered with print-outs of rising graphs. “You should join the guru-service,” he said.

I join up with a guru
Back home I did just that. I invested $6,000 and started playing. The tips came fast and furious and I chose and bought shares with a cash advance. Some were good and some were not. My fund rose to $7,000 in a year and then came the crash. I watched my fortune drop to $2,000. The renewal notice came from the guru service and I tossed it. I began playing on my own, buying and selling shares for small gains or losses. My fund is within reach of $9,000 now. The gurus keep writing to me and offering me advice. I sometimes check their results and in my opinion they know no more than I do. But then again, they are making money selling their advice.

Payday Loans

Tags: Casinos, Gambling, Stock exchange, Stock Gurus, Stocks
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The $120 million gambling losing streak

December 8th, 2009

How long can a losing streak go on for?
This guy is a loser in every sense of the word. Now the 52-year-old Nebraskan who made his money by selling his father’s toy import firm, faces criminal charges over non-payment of his debts. In turn, he is suing the Caesars Palace and Rio casinos alleging they let him play while drunk, in violation of gambling rules. The philanthropist, from Omaha, claims the casinos plied him with alcohol and painkillers while he gambled.

A stand-alone tourist attraction
Watanabe’s colossal losses soon became the stuff of legend, not to mention a tourist attraction. “It got to the point where people would go just to watch him losing,” said one Vegas regular. “There are a lot of things that make you cringe in Vegas – but I’ve never seen anything like that.”

At the gambling tables
If there was a prize for the biggest gambling debts, Terrance Watanabe would be a clear winner. At the casino tables of Las Vegas, however, he was quite the opposite, racking up $126-million in losses in a one year losing streak. In the year 2007 his play was so bad that he lost $4.8 million in one 24-hour binge. During that year, the 52 year old Watanabe practically lived at the two casinos, betting a grand total of $825 million. He would sometimes play for 24 hours at a stretch, placing bets on games with some of the worst odds in the house, roulette and $25 multi-line slot machines. When he played blackjack, he would often play three hands at the same time, each with a $50,000 limit.

His losses
At his rock bottom in 2007, Watanabe lost $5 million in just one 24-hour gambling binge.

The Watanabe defense
Watanabe’s suit against Harrah’s, the parent company of the two casinos named in the suit, Caesar’s and the Rio, alleges fraud, breach of contract, conspiracy and negligence. The action came after he was slapped with criminal theft and bad-check charges in Vegas over $14.5 million in losses that he has allegedly failed to pay the casino. Harrah’s dismissed Watanabe’s claim, saying he is the one who is at fault. Watanabe claims he was allowed to play while drunk and out of control, in violation of gaming rules. At Caesars and the Rio, he claims, he was assigned his own bartender and gave stacks of $100 bills, sometimes as much as $20,000 in tips.

Harrah’s case
“Mr. Watanabe is a criminal defendant who faces imprisonment,” said Harrah’s spokeswoman Jan Jones. “All of his statements need to be seen in that light. We will not get into a public debate with a criminal defendant who is trying to avoid imprisonment.” His former lawyer, David Chesnoff, submitted a letter to a jury earlier this year, stating casino witnesses would testify that he was regularly drunk. He is free on $1,5-million bail and awaiting a trial in July, at which he will face up to 16 years in prison.

Tags: Bad checks, Bad gambling, Caesars Palace, Gambling, Gambling losses, Las Vegas, The Rio Casino
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