
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is no longer crisscrossing the united states on the presidential campaign trail, and thus the Republican, now in his 2nd gubernatorial term, has more time to refocus their efforts on issues facing his own state.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said enough is sufficient on Thursday, calling on state lawmakers to take solid control of the town. He made his instance designed with colorful graphs displaying the overspending that is reckless’s become rampant in Atlantic City.
No concern is more paramount in New Jersey right now than Atlantic City’s current crisis that is financial. On Thursday, Christie told his fellow legislators that it’s in the city’s best interest to allow hawaii to take control of its funds.
‘Even using the help and the advice of the Emergency Manager that we set up in 2015, Atlantic City took only modest steps to rein their costs in,’ Christie said during the statehouse this week. ‘They face a $100 million spending plan shortfall this 12 months, $100 million budget deficit this present year . . . They are the numbers, this is the math, and these are the reality, and there’s no debate about any of it.’
Park Place & Boardwalk Salaries
In Christie’s arguments, the governor highlighted just what he believes to be gross overspending on municipal workers. Armed with maps and graphs, he showed that 119 city workers were paid over $100,000 throughout the last financial year, an amount which doesn’t even include the ‘Lamborghini-level’ healthcare and benefits package that accompanies those salaries.
Christie also stressed the fact that Atlantic City paid $6.6 million in 2015 to retiring employees that are public primarily to compensate unused sick and vacation days. Part-time council people were collectively paid $300,000, an expense regarded as extravagant in the optical eyes associated with governor.
Unless the state legislature takes action to give control of the gambling that is flailing to Trenton, Christie states he lacks the energy to renegotiate contracts with public sector unions getting the ‘exorbitant expenses of the town employees in order.’
Takeover is the Only Solution
Christie is calling on State Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto (D) to urge the chamber to hand over control of Atlantic City to your state. Prieto opposes that path, opting in favor of the PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) program alternatively.
PILOT would allow casinos to pay taxes on a fixed schedule that isn’t determined on property value or gaming profits, which have both significantly diminished over the years, as tourism to the area has fallen.
Christie believes the PILOT system is a short-term solution that won’t help Atlantic City’s long-term forecast. Financial analyst outfit Moody’s seems to agree.
‘If just the bill that is PILOT [with no other measures instituted], the town continues to face stress since the single bill is insufficient to restore Atlantic City’s fiscal wellness,’ the credit history corporation said recently. ‘ Even though the PILOT bill produces additional profits and avoids incurring additional casino tax liabilities, it is inadequate to avoid crippling deficits of $30 to $40 million a 12 months, over the next five years.’
Christie believes public workers need to step up to the plate into the most readily useful interest of their city, but it seems some happen to be doing that.
Every four weeks instead of two, a change that would allow the government to continue operating until the next quarterly tax payments are received on May 1 after Atlantic City Mayor Don Guardian (R) threatened a city closure of non-essential employees, various unions proposed paying employees.
But that is only one month away, so action will need to be taken, and soon.
DoubleDown Social Casino Illinois Customer Lawsuit Dismissed, Angry Patron Lost $1K in Virtual Chips
IGT’s DoubleDown multiplatform social casino website has survived a course action lawsuit attempt from a disgruntled Illinois customer who reported that the free video gaming platform offers ‘nothing more than camouflaged unlawful games of chance.’
IGT’s DoubleDown casino that is social back a class action lawsuit effort from the disgruntled Illinois on line customer this week, whom claimed that its operations were tantamount to ‘real’ gambling. (Image: onlinewin.minnim.org)
Plaintiff Margo Phillips blew $1,000 in real money on virtual, value-less chips on the site before determining she wanted to claw back every play cent. Phillips claimed that because DoubleDown uses ‘gambling mechanics’ in its games, it is tantamount to actual gambling.
Well, except for real money being involved, but apart from that.
In a course action lawsuit filed at the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, Phillips said she wanted the DoubleDown site to be shut down and money refunded to customers in Illinois. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of all citizens of the state who had lost over $50 playing at DoubleDown, under the Illinois that is antiquated Loss Act (ILRA).
Claw-back Law Dragged Up
The 19th century law states that any Illinois gambler who loses $50 or more has got the straight to sue the champion to get the amount of money straight back. It also states that will the losing gambler perhaps not sue the winner within sixth months, then ‘any person’ is permitted to sue with respect to all losers, for approximately 3 x the amount.
The legislation was originally designed to protect destitute families who’d had their dollar that is last stolen loved ones, that was subsequently gambled away.
Phillips states she began playing on DoubleDown in January of 2013, and soon began purchasing digital (and value-less) chips with genuine money, once she had played through the supply that is original of chips. She argues, they had a monetary value, just like chips purchased in a casino, and therefore the services offered by DoubleDown were tantamount to illegal gambling because she paid for the chips.
According to Phillips, also ILRA, DoubleDown ended up being in violation of the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business ways Act, and was guilty of unjustly enriching it self with the use of ‘gambling devices,’ another no-no under Illinois state legislation.
The filing might have had to establish that online social casino games are thought as ‘gambling devices,’ and that IGT had procured cash from the plaintiff in a illegal manner.
Describe ‘Gambling’
But the judge, unlike Phillips, wasn’t buying any of it.
JudgeEdmond Chang noted that ILRA requires a success and a loser through the results of a gambling proposition. Because virtual chips bought from DoubleDown can’t be cashed in for real money, the social casino site cannot lose any such thing from the proposition, and so Phillips had been on shaky ground.
In fact, broadly speaking, Phillips was asking the court to reconsider the very definition of gambling as it is construed in almost every state in the US: namely, the proposition that something of value is risked upon the outcome of a event or game that is subject to possibility within the hope of receiving something different of equal or greater value.
While investing in virtual potato chips constitutes a stake that is financial without any financial reward involved, no kind of gambling has occurred, by any legal definition, at the very least.
In fact, one could say that Phillip’s choice to sue DoubleDown is a definitely better example of gambling than something that happens on the social casino website. And in this instance, it had been a bet that is losing.
Money Laundering and Suspicious Activity at Casinos Continues to Rise, FinCEN Reports
Money laundering is serious company.
Unfortunately for all those in the casino industry, criminals have long relished the attractiveness associated with the floor cage as being the instrument that is perfect clean dirty money into purportedly legitimate funds.
‘Washing’ cash by trading it in for chips then cashing it down again has turn into a preferred method of money laundering by criminals. Now FinCEN wants the industry to better monitor itself for prospective crimes being committed by patrons, and the issues have actually become international. (Image: i5design.com)
A bureau of the United States Department of the Treasury, requires institutions to file Currency Transaction Reports when a customer transacts over $10,000 in a single day since 1996, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network ( FinCEN. In addition, federal law mandates that a dubious task report (SAR) be completed if the patron is suspected of participating in the laundering of cash.
With thousands of commercial banks into the US, including smaller regional organizations, FinCEN is cracking straight down on cash laundering by threatening non-conforming banking institutions with financial penalties.
With no option but to comply with FinCEN, SARs filed by banks rose from 288,343 in 2003 to 972,037 in 2013, a 70 percent increase in just 10 years. But, a unexpected decline in SARs followed in 2014, and with it arrived an increase in suspicious activity reports being filed by the casino, securities, and insurance companies.
What does it all mean?
Underground and Out of Sight
In a Wall Street Journal report this week titled, ‘Losing Count: US Terror Rules Drive Money Underground,’ the argument is made that current FinCEN guidelines might actually be hampering the government’s ability to monitor dubious activity and intercept potential terrorism.
Afraid of facing significant financial penalties for facilitating a suspicious consumer’s demand, banking institutions are quickly closing accounts after filing SARs. This forces the alleged perpetrator to use alternative ways to move cash, and the funds effectively vanish from regulatory oversight.
‘What do we do, in the police force arena, when the money goes underground?’ FBI financial crimes specialist Patrick Fallon pondered within the piece. ‘It’s what you do not know that’s the frightening thing.’
As banks refuse to provide services for suspected launderers, those who find themselves indeed attempting to facilitate money movement illegally may be drawn more and more to the casino cage.
And while bank SARs dropped by nearly nine percent between 2013-2014, the reports increased in the casino industry by 69 % during the same time framework.
Gambling enterprises Feeling the Heat
FinCEN Director Jennifer Calvery said her office’s 340 employees are successfully safeguarding academized write me an essay the united states system that is financial promoting nationwide security, and SARs play an essential part in those efforts.
‘The information that casinos along with other banking institutions provide can be used to confront terrorist organizations, rogue nations, WMD proliferators, international grand corruption, and increasingly serious cyber threats,’ Calvery stated in 2014. ‘Violating the BSA (Bank Secrecy Act) might result in FinCEN imposing civil penalties against the casino itself.’
And imposing penalties they are, as Calvery’s team levied economic fines on four gambling companies this past year alone. Most notably was the US Dept. of the Treasury’s $8 million penalty on Caesars Palace Las Vegas for what FinCEN found to become a willful violation of the BSA and failure to stick to SAR protocols.
The recent alleged involvement of two Philippines banks in a $83 million cyber heist from the New York Federal Reserve has shined a level brighter light with this troubling issue, and also you can bet that regulatory arms around the world is moving in to the casino industry for the better look.
The list of web sites, which detectives have said were centered on servers outside Italy and have been impounded, are as follows: www4.dgbpoker.com; www.pkgambling373.com; www.pkwildpoker.net; www.betfaktor.com; www.planetwin365.com; www.new5.betaland.com; www.new4.betaland.com; www.new2.betaland.com; www.new1.betaland.com; www.new.betaland.com; and www.betaland.com.
But in accordance with CalvinAyre.com, two of the internet sites might have been targeted in error. Austria’s SKS365 Group, which operates Planet365, has categorically distanced itself from any involvement, saying that the unlawful group had exploited Planet365’s brand reputation to lure bettors to copycat web sites.
OIA solutions Ltd, meanwhile, which owns Betaland, says that Betaland.com has been closed to Italian players for over a year, and the internet sites associated with the gambling band that used the Betaland extension did so without authorization and were ‘rightly currently darkened to get into, as unlicensed.’
Tancredi Hyper Links
Italian authorities said that the ring additionally had links to Luigi Tancredi, a man understood in Italy as ‘the King of Slots’ for his operations in the legal land-based gambling world.
Tancredi is believed to be the dog owner of DollaroPoker, and was arrested in January and accused of being the mastermind of a gambling ring that operated 12,000 gaming that is online lottery video terminals in bars, cafes and gaming halls throughout Italy.