Ex-San Diego mayor drained charity, lost $1B gambling

[Brock Landers]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/02/14/san-diego-former-mayor-money-laundering/1920423/

[InTheDrink]

good for her

[The Giant]

What the hell?

[Grits n' Gravy]

Big video poker player but that figure seems way high. She was a pain in the ass too. Should have hung out with fishhead and gotten 2 for 1 ketchup packets to pair with a dumpster hot dog.

[freeVICK]

broke slanders style

[TheMoneyShot]

She won 1 Billion though? What?

[Bluehorseshoe]

She'll get it back on the Clippers. I'm her life coach.

[d2bets]

Wait a second. Did I read that right. She turned $2 million into $1 billion over 9 years? Bullshit. If that's true, I don't care that she lost it, how did she do that? That's fuckin impressive.

Seriously, has any gambler ever turned $2 million into $1 billion over a long stretch? I wanna know more about this.

[milwaukee mike]

here's what i am pretty sure happened, and the article is misleading.

in the u.s., any slot machine win over $1200 is reportable on a 1099-G. i have done a few returns of big-time gamblers that show $3 million of winnings in a year, and then $3 million of losses to offset those winnings. the problem comes in because (depending on the tax laws from year to year) sometimes that pushes you over the income limits to claim all of your deductions, if she had $1 billion in winnings and losses, just on the federal returns she would've owed taxes on 3% of that or $30 million ($10 million in taxes).

not sure about california, but in wisconsin you can't write off the offsetting losses against gains. which, of course, has resulted in quite a few bankruptcies just because of state taxes on "winnings" that were all stuck back in machines. since this case went to court, they probably claimed she never kept a log of casino activity so could disallow ALL the losses over the years, just taxing her on the phantom winnings.

http://taxdood.com/2012/04/01/same-old-story-without-diary-gambling-loss-disallowed/

so she never really "won" $1 billion, it was just the money rolled over. just like if i was playing blackjack for $1000/hand, won 1000 hands and lost 1000 hands, the article would say "milwaukee mike won $1 million playing blackjack!"

[InTheDrink]

congrats on your million mike!

mrs milwaukee must be thrilled!

[Grits n' Gravy]

You would be correct Mike. She was a $100 vp player. 3 of a kind pays $1500 a pop so she would go on credit mode to speed up play with a floor person logging all of her wins over $1200 without machine locking up. If I remember correctly she played reasonably fast at like 12 hands per minute. 6k a minute. 360k an hour. It adds up.

[Grits n' Gravy]

And she was small potatoes compared to guys like Watanabe, Siddiqui, Bob Ben, Kasnetz, Brodie on slots during that time period. Think all of them aside from Brodie are locked up or broke.

[milwaukee mike]

You would be correct Mike. She was a $100 vp player. 3 of a kind pays $1500 a pop so she would go on credit mode to speed up play with a floor person logging all of her wins over $1200 without machine locking up. If I remember correctly she played reasonably fast at like 12 hands per minute. 6k a minute. 360k an hour. It adds up.

that would make sense based on the math, a 5 hour session would be almost $2 million in wins/losses, take that times 150 days/year for a few years and presto $1 billion!

[JMobile]

Us San Diegans like to gamble, and????

[milwaukee mike]

Us San Diegans like to gamble, and????

yes but not all of you steal millions from charity to do it

i guess it's ok to steal millions of dollars if you have a medical condition

name me one person over 40 that doesn't have a medical condition of some kind

[UntilTheNDofTimE]

Dang mike. So in milwaukee you cant offset gambling loses equal to your winnings for state tax purposes? Thats rough.

[RealSlimShady]

And she was small potatoes compared to guys like Watanabe, Siddiqui, Bob Ben, Kasnetz, Brodie on slots during that time period. Think all of them aside from Brodie are locked up or broke.

Watanabe was the whale of whales!

[milwaukee mike]

Dang mike. So in milwaukee you cant offset gambling loses equal to your winnings for state tax purposes? Thats rough.

you "might" be able to now in wisconsin. in a tax court ruling that just happened, they went along with the feds and said that each trip to the casino can be an event, so if you won $3000 and stuck it all back in the machine, for the trip you won $0 and wouldn't have any taxes on it.

it's a real slap in the face to everyone that has been paying taxes, and to everyone here that tried to claim "professional gambler" status to avoid wisconsin taxes, because they challenged all the big ones and the people all lost and owed big taxes.

[TheMoneyShot]

Don't know if this is true or not but.... the Feds want you too:

1. Report all gambling winnings... and taxed on the earnings.

2. Report all gambling losses... but it's just a deduction not the true percentage you lost?

That's horse sh#$. You can get hot... and pay a heavy tax... but we all know it's easy to lose. So... you're going to lose in tax... and the money you made.

[konck]

Brock talking about scammers

[sam9ball]

Ex-mayor's $1 billion gambling woes stun San Diego

http://news.yahoo.com/ex-mayors-1-billion-gambling-woes-stun-san-095015218.html

SAN DIEGO (AP) — Maureen O'Connor was a physical education teacher who won a seat on the San Diego City Council when she was only 25 years old, later winning two terms as the city's first female mayor as she charmed voters with a populist flair.

But her rapid rise was matched by her fall, culminating Thursday when she acknowledged in federal court that she took $2.1 million from her late husband's charitable foundation during a decade-long gambling spree in which she won — and lost — more than $1 billion.

[milwaukee mike]

"her net gambling losses topped $13 million"

there are cheaper hobbies out there

[CanuckG]

[ ] Lost 1 billion

[broadway6]

Brock, how much is your Gtown ticket tonight? Help the gov out.

[Brock Landers]

Brock, how much is your Gtown ticket tonight? Help the gov out.

small play, have Georgetown +5 1/2-140 to win 400

[itchypickle]

Only a Billion...shiiiitttt...Brock loses that much in a week and STILL keeps his roll fat

[alling]

Her SBR username is Emily Haines.

[rcene]

She must be related to Landers.

[Dirty Sanchez]

Hilarious Landers...you must be a real knee slapper at funerals

[Brock Landers]

Hilarious Landers...you must be a real knee slapper at funerals

[pokernut9999]

Wait a second. Did I read that right. She turned $2 million into $1 billion over 9 years? Bullshit. If that's true, I don't care that she lost it, how did she do that? That's fuckin impressive.

Seriously, has any gambler ever turned $2 million into $1 billion over a long stretch? I wanna know more about this.

She stole the 2 million after she lost all her own money.

[UntilTheNDofTimE]

Don't know if this is true or not but.... the Feds want you too:

1. Report all gambling winnings... and taxed on the earnings.

2. Report all gambling losses... but it's just a deduction not the true percentage you lost?

That's horse sh#$. You can get hot... and pay a heavy tax... but we all know it's easy to lose. So... you're going to lose in tax... and the money you made.

No gambling winnings can actually be completely deducted. I entered a little over 19k in W2G's and also showed a deuction of 14,000 and it only shows income of that section of 5,000. And only 5,000 is added to my total income. I messed around and wrote off the whole amount( total income was increased by $0) then i just deleted all W2G's and the taxes due were the same amount.