The Oklahoma Legislature has reached an impasse over the sin that is so-called of gambling and cigarettes.
Oklahoma House Minority Leader Scott Inman wants to expand video gaming, but his Republican constituents think he should put that concept in his pipe and smoke it.
Both the Oklahoma Senate and House are controlled by the GOP, but that’sn’t stopping the minority party from blocking a smoke tax increase proposed by House Republicans.
Democrats in the reduced chamber are doing this in order to give their side leverage in ongoing budget negotiations, and their desires to expand gambling and allow tribal gambling enterprises to offer roulette and dice games.
Oklahoma lawmakers are researching to close an $878 million money gap. While Republicans can pass the budget of these choosing, they https://myfreepokies.com/21-dukes-casino/ require a vote that is three-fourths raise tobacco cigarette taxes, and the 26 Democrats within the 101-member House are not budging.
‘We’ve said all along that the cigarette tax is a Band-Aid on a bullet gap,’ Oklahoma House Minority Leader Scott Inman (D-District 94) told the Associated Press. ‘You’ve got to have additional revenue.’
This week, the House and Senate budget committees recommended a $1.50 per tobacco cigarette pack income tax increase. To help make the budget whole with only that tariff hike, Oklahomans would roughly need to purchase 585.3 million packs of smokes.
GOP Extinguishes Gambling
Republican leaders in Oklahoma feel casinos are currently too accessible, and expanded gaming would result in additional societal that is negative.
‘I think we have too gambling that is much on into the state,’ Senate President Pro Tem Mike Schulz (R-District 38) opined this week. ‘ I think we have people whom are spending milk and bread money in a casino rather than using care of their children.’
Democrats proposed a plan that claims to build $400 million over the next year. As well as the tobacco cigarette tax, the minority recommended a $17,000 cap on itemized income tax deductions for citizens, the restoration of the earned tax credit, eliminating oil and gas manufacturing incentives, and expanding tribal gaming.
The casino component might have allowed tribes to offer non-house-banked table games like roulette and craps in exchange for 10 % of their monthly net win. It also called for the legalization of sports betting should the current federal ban be repealed.
With Democrats refusing to budge on cigarettes, and Republicans standing firm on keeping gambling as is, the Oklahoma Legislature has already reached a spending plan stalemate.
Pennsylvania’s Smoking Gun
Even though the Oklahoma Legislature is expected to put up special spending plan sessions to iron out its differences over gambling and smoking, a bipartisan bill in Pennsylvania seeks to outlaw cigarettes in casinos and watering holes.
Pennsylvania House Bill 1309 will expand in the state’s 2008 Clean Indoor Air Act to eliminate exemptions for gambling venues and pubs. Casinos are permitted to designate a percentage of their floors to smoking, and taverns that report 20 percent or less of their revenue comes from meals can enable patrons to puff.
With 18 bill sponsors that includes Democrats and Republicans, HB 1309 appears to function as the very first gaming-related measure to own across-the-aisle support in Harrisburg this present year. Their state is considering a bunch of gaming expansion bills to finance its own budget deficit that is growing.
Trump Taj Mahal, Built for $1.2 Billion in 1990, Sold for $50 Million in 2017
The former Trump Taj Mahal was sold in March to Hard Rock Overseas for $50 million, a massive discount on what it are priced at to build the Atlantic City home significantly more than a quarter-century ago in 1990.
Hard Rock will spend up to $400 million rebranding and renovating the former Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, or seven times what it paid for the resort that is actual. (Image: Wayne Parry/Associated Press)
Throughout the country’s history, real estate has typically been a somewhat safe investment that is returned strong returns for homeowners, along with developers.
That’s changed, of course, in recent years following the financial recession that hit the US in 2008 and 2009. The new the truth is no longer obvious than in the valuation of the Trump Taj Mahal.
Dubbed the ‘Eighth ponder of the World’ when it started 27 years back, billionaire Carl Icahn unloaded the resort, which he closed last October after failing in the future to new labor terms with casino workers, for the gravely discounted price of $50 million. That equates to significantly less than a nickel in the dollar when compared with exactly what Trump and his financiers compensated.
The Hard Rock purchase was announced in March, but financial terms of the deal were not made public until papers filed because of the United States Securities and Exchange Commission had been revealed this week.
Icahn Folds
Along with his vast real estate and hotel portfolio, Trump has credited his casino dealings for helping build their unknown fortune.
The 45th president severed ties with Atlantic City in 2009, though he maintained a tiny stake in the Trump Taj Mahal via a certification agreement until this past year.
Icahn, a friend that is close the commander-in-chief, acquired the past remaining Trump Entertainment Resorts property in bankruptcy in early 2016. During the time for the buyout, he called the Taj Mahal a signature Atlantic City property. Fast-forward 13 months, while the investment is revealed by the billionaire cost him $350 million.
A dispute that is contentious Icahn and the Unite right Here Local 54 workers union over a wage increase plus the restoration of benefits led the corporate raider to shutter the Taj Mahal and put thousands out of work.
Rewriting ‘Art of the contract’
Though most are saying the Seminole Tribe, which owns the Hard Rock brand, essentially rewrote the ‘Art associated with the Deal,’ Trump’s signature book, by buying the formerly valued $1.2 billion resort for just $50 million, the bargain price comes with its share that is fair of.
The company also assumes the Taj’s massive property tax bill in addition to Hard Rock saying it will spend up to $400 million in rebranding and renovating the resort. Atlantic City officials have the venue valued at over $224 million, an assessment that Icahn has repeatedly appealed.
Hard Rock will also be forced to begin participating in the state’s PILOT system (payment instead of fees) that mandates the city’s remaining casinos jointly remit a $120 million disbursement that is annual local government instead of paying on gaming revenue.
The Seminoles will be on the additionally hook for the resort’s home taxes. The Florida Native American group should only expect to see those tariffs increase, as Atlantic City will likely raise its $224 million valuation once the tribe dumps billions of dollars in to the Boardwalk facility.
Did Authorities that is chinese Launch DDoS Attacks on Hong Kong Online Gambling Sites?
Scores of online gambling websites based in Hong Kong were battered by a wave of distributed denial of service (DDoS) assaults in the week of April, in accordance with US-based Arbor Security, which monitors the web for DDoS attack data.
For a week at the start of April, Hong Kong became the ground zero of DDoS assaults through the entire world, but why? (Image: HackRead)
Between April 6 and 13, hackers apparently situated in Asia flooded the bandwidth of countless gambling web sites with a massive influx of traffic, knocking them offline.
The events were striking and uncommon, according to Arbor, because for those seven days Hong Kong was the top destination in the planet for such attacks, a dubious honor almost always reserved for the United States.
Extortion Suspected
It had been also noteworthy, said Arbor, because ‘country-level activity’ frequently denotes motivation that is geopolitical i.e, attacks directed so intently at web sites of a solitary territory is definitely an indication of cyber warfare organized on a state-level. It’s a notion, however, that Kirk Soluk, manager of the business’s threat intelligence team, rules out.
‘…the emergence of multiple, different gambling/gaming goals leads us to trust that DDoS extortion is considered the most likely motivation,’ he concluded in a web log on the Arbor website this week.
It is a conclusion that is reasonable. After all, hackers have actually sought to hold gambling that is online to ransom since ab muscles beginning of the industry.
Sports gambling web sites are particularly vulnerable because they are hopelessly reliant on major sports for large chunks of these revenues and may be have little choice but to spend a ransom that is small intentionally targeted during these periods.
Serious Punishment Promised
But we wonder how up to date Arbor is on Chinese gambling issues that are regulatory. Probably never, and why should it be?
Does it know, for example, that the first of the Hong Kong assaults arrived just five days after China’s Public protection Minister Guo Shengkun promised ‘severe punishment’ for gambling operators targeting citizens that are chinese the mainland?
And does it know that the only legal and certified Hong Kong-based online operator may be the Hong Kong Jockey Club (HKJC), therefore any other online gambling web site based in Hong Kong is unlicensed and a legitimate target for the government that is chinese? In reality, based on a statement by the HKJC in 2014, unlicensed operators have links to organized crime and therefore unlawful on line gambling is akin to a ‘blood crime.’
Of course, the nature of DDoS attacks means they are able to have been orchestrated from any place in the world and attackers were simply harnessing internet-connected products from within China.
Or they could have come from within China, orchestrated by the government, which had little motivation to disguise the origin. We might never ever understand.
Poker Player Bets He Can Eat $1,000 of McDonald’s Food in 36 Hours
Poker player Mike Noori is a man whom likes to place his money where his mouth is. But the real million-dollar concern is, can he put $1,000 of McDonald’s food in his mouth, then chew it, and swallow it, and commence digesting it, all within 36-hours?
Not Lovin’ It: Two-time LA Poker Classic champ Mike Noori could have to consume at the very least 66,000 calories in 36 hours if he has the possibility of winning this reverse weight-loss bet. (Image: LAPC)
Many people think it’s impossible. Very nearly everyone agrees that it is stupid.
Noori is getting 5:1 on a bet proposed to him by renowned tournament director Matt Savage. As the exact figure riding on Noori’s success is undisclosed, Noori said on Twitter that thus far that more than $200,000 has already been booked regarding the proposition wager, but just a small slice of this is his money.
‘This is impossible,’ declared fellow poker pro and food that is aspiring Jimmy Fricke (JimmyEatsVegas.com) in the twoplustwo poker forums. ‘ If he consumes the lowest calorie/dollar food available (southwest grilled chicken salad) this might be still 66,000 calories.’
‘It can be achieved,’ another poster countered. ‘20,000 calories a day combined with workout is already something men that are many in training. It is not easy but if he exercised throughout and had little rests it would help significantly.’
1,500 Apples Slices
Like all gamblers that are good Noori certainly has a game plan. He’s opting to begin off with $500-worth of apple slices, and then $200 in salads, with bacon, cheese and guacamole add-ons.
These dollar amounts on apple slices and salads were set as caps within the conditions for the bet.
With bags of apple pieces selling at a dollar each, and three pieces in each bag, that’s still a body-punishing 1,500 apple slices Noori would need to ingest before he even thinking in regards to the weightier burgers.
No Blenders?
And yes, there will be burgers. It’s written into the rules, which state that $300 must be used on ‘hot foodstuffs,’ of which at least $50 needs to be burgers. Other requirements are that Noori ‘must eat precisely what comes with the order (except the Happy Meal toy),’ and ‘no blenders.’
The rules that are official state that ‘Puking is OK as long as he does not force the puke or puke over and over repeatedly.’ Indeed, health and safety first.
Gamblers have done things that are notoriously foolish cash over time. In 2014 Freddy Torres agreed to jump into a shark-filled tank for $1,000. In 2011, Ashton Griffin won a bet that he couldn’t run 70 miles in a single on a treadmill day. He attempted the feat while hungover and on really little sleep, but prevailed and had been $350,000 richer once he finally reached the end of the treadmill.
In 2010, Ted Forrest notably put his wellness at an increased risk by losing more than 70 pounds in a year. But it was all for a cause that is good winning $2 million from Mike Matusow.
Then there had been that man who had the boob job.
But Noori’s weight-loss bet in reverse could possibly be one of the most dangerous and foolhardy of the lot. And that’s why we’re praying he pulls it well, or at minimum does not choke for a fry that is french.
FBI Director Comey Fired by Trump, Online Gambling Perhaps Safer Than Ever Before
James Comey has been relieved of his duties as director of the FBI. Some proponents of online gambling are breathing a sigh of relief while the world wrestles with implications of this unprecedented dismissal. As the nation’s leaders search for a replacement amid a swath of critical dilemmas facing the world, the belief is that online gambling, as a political issue, will always be out from the Trump administration’s crosshairs. At minimum temporarily.
People in the us wish to know if President Trump fired FBI Director James Comey as retribution for a research into possible links between Russia and their presidential campaign. (Images: Reuters)
On Tuesday, President Donald Trump abruptly terminated Comey, citing shortcomings in handling the probe of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her use of a email server that is private. This came less than on a daily basis after the American public started focusing on new revelations from a Congressional research into Russia’s so-called interference within the 2016 election that is presidential.
Comey has critics on both sides associated with the aisle, and demands his termination happen regular since belated October, when he sent a letter to Congress about a need certainly to examine additional Clinton email messages, which ultimately revealed absolutely nothing of substance.
‘The FBI is one of our nation’s most cherished and respected institutions, and today will mark a new beginning for our crown jewel of police,’ Trump explained in a public statement from the White House. The president told Comey that he could no longer ‘effectively lead’ the FBI and said ‘new leadership that restores general public trust and confidence’ had been required.
Trump has become tasked with locating a replacement, one who will be approved by a GOP-controlled Senate. And though Republicans have supported efforts to bring back the Wire Act, online gambling skillfully developed have a hard time imagining any new FBI boss making a popular leisure pursuit a pressing issue of the afternoon.
Anti-Online Gambling Swamp
When Trump arrived in Washington, internet gambling and online poker players had been justly concerned within the future lawfulness of the sites they access from their homes and mobile devices. Especially as his appointed Attorney General Jeff Sessions expressed interest in looking at the legality of current intrastate online gambling measures.
The 45th commander-in-chief notoriously ran multiple New Jersey casinos into bankruptcy, yet one of his true campaign donors that are largest ended up being Las Vegas billionaire Sheldon Adelson. The owner of the Venetian, Palazzo, and a slew of casino properties throughout the world has been on a self-described moral crusade since 2014 to ‘restore the Wire Act,’ which would effectively outlaw online casino gambling and poker.
So far, neither Trump’s administration nor Congress has shown interest that is much tackling the legality of on line gambling. The subject did come up, but, from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S. Carolina) during confirmation hearings for Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who said he was ‘shocked’ at the Department of Justice’s 2011 opinion that clarified an interpretation that is legal of Wire Act as just applying to activities betting.
Hold’em by the Short Hairs?
This opinion could possibly be easily reversed by the DOJ, nevertheless. So whoever’s close to just take the helm of the FBI could be instructed to deploy the agency’s full resources toward stopping online gambling in all its forms.
Graham has worked on behalf of Adelson to introduce the Restoration of America’s Wire Act (RAWA) in past calendar years. Home Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), a strong critic of comey, has done equivalent in his chamber.
RAWA has neglected to gain momentum in Congress, but additionally wasn’t dismissed outright as a possibility that is legislative. Chaffetz recently announced his intent to possibly leave Congress before the end of his current term.
The FBI and Its Longer Arm Online Gaming Reach
2011 The DOJ and FBI changed the face of online gaming in America after the agencies seized internet domains from PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker, and others, on what would become known as ‘Black Friday’ in the poker world that is online. By shutting down these sites, players were rejected use of their funds for years, though eventual payoffs have finally happened for PokerStars and Full Tilt players, and lately, Absolute Poker.
2014 A flawed FBI raid of an alleged World Cup recreations wagering operation at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas allowed suspected ringleader Paul Phua to duck a prison sentence that is possible. High-profile attorney David Chesnoff argued that the raid represented entrapment for his customer, and the prosecution dropped all charges.
2017 The FBI and DOJ investigated and successfully prosecuted sports that are notorious Billy Walters on charges of insider trading. Walters, who was discovered accountable of utilizing a stock tip given by former Dean Foods Chairman Tom Davis, is appealing the conviction. Pro golfer Phil Mickelson had been also for this controversy after investing in the same company. The 42-time PGA Tour champion admitted his sports gambling pal supplied the advice that is financial but reported he had been unaware it absolutely was acquired fraudulently. Mickelson returned his profits and was never ever charged.