Stop Predatory Gambling

Why not arrest Harrah’s executives for their unpaid debts?

by spgadmin

Antoine Walker, a former NBA basketball star who played most of his career with the Boston Celtics and helped lead the University of Kentucky to a NCAA championship in the mid-1990′s, was led out of Harrah’s casino in handcuffs on Wednesday night. Read the story here.

Only 32 years old, Walker owes more than $800,000 to casinos. Because the casino business model relies on 90% of its profits coming from 10% of casino visitors, casinos will lend money – called “markers” - to the people within that 10%. It’s the equivalent of a bank loan officer convincing you to sign important loan documents while you are heavily drunk or high on drugs.

Walker earned more than $100 million in a 12 year career so in the vocabulary of the predatory gambling trade, he had a very large “predicted lifetime value.”

Will the same government authorities that arrested Walker on behalf of the casinos investigate the marketing techniques and behavior profiling used by the casinos to get Walker into so much debt?

Hey wait…why didn’t the Nevada district attorney’s office arrest Harrah’s management for not paying their debts at the same time they arrested Walker? According to this BusinessWeek article,  

“The wounded casino giant has persuaded bondholders to forgive some of its debt, twice now. In the latest deal, on Apr. 9, investors agreed to exchange $5.9 billion in loans for roughly $3.7 billion in cash and new debt, taking a 37% cut on their principal. The upshot for Harrah’s: lower interest payments and a less onerous debt load.”

Shouldn’t this also mean that any gambler who has lost money and got themselves into debt to Harrah’s only needs to pay back $.63 of every dollar they owe?