
Our company is told this is movie producer Mark Hodos from Florida, the newest Nevada Megabucks champion of $10.3 million (Image: IGT)
There needs to be one thing in the air within the desert at this time of the year. Last 12 months in mid-December, a woman playing A overseas Game Technologies‘ Megabucks video slot used gaming credits earned to hit a $17.3 million jackpot at the M Casino; now a Florida man has hit a $10.3 million one at the MGM Grand during the exact same week this year. a producer that is executive ofAll American Christmas Carol‘ a type of trailer trash form of the Dickens classic, it would appear winner Mark Hodos says the moolah goes back in his Hollywood production company. Although we see no mention of him on the film’s IMDb, but we have been naturally cynical and then we say ‚Bollywood. if this person says ‚Hollywood,“
Then way to save yourself numerous grovelling L.A. investor pitch meetings, sir if he’s legitimately a producer.
Two in a Row
Hodos‘ win followed a player who hit the Megabucks this November because well, also during the MGM Grand, which is the casino that is biggest regarding the Las Vegas Strip. The Megabucks slot machines are typical on the IGT that is same Nevada, making for large payouts, with minimums of $10 million and more added since it does not get hit.
With no state that is official by itself, Megabucks is considered the equivalent, and during its 19-year history in Nevada, has brought numerous millionaires into existence. It is also the basis for most metropolitan legends, including one that always seems to stay in the shadows with any lottery win: the start of very misfortune.
One piece of bad luck that cannot be avoided is Uncle Sam’s greedy paws into the pot. Based on a $35-million win, it’s estimated that winners will only get a check that is initial of $1.4 million. The big winner then has as much as ninety days to ascertain if they desire to obtain the balance in annual installments, that will be paid away over 25 years, or have a lump amount which will be only 60 percent for the actual win total; based on that $35 million, that would emerge to ‚just‘ $21 million, so obviously most Megabucks winners get for choice #1.
A Pound of Flesh to the Feds, Of Course
Don’t go shopping for a Beverly Hills estate just yet though; because the tax that is minimum on that annual income will nevertheless be 40 per cent; at the least Nevada does not have a state tax, which someone who won the California Megabucks would need to pay as well, for example. So on your $35 million, that’s $13,400,000 going towards some very nice IRS christmas parties over the next 25 years.
And you’re left with $20,100,000, or a measly $804,000 net (more or less) per year for the next 25 years. Suddenly it’s not as life-changing as it seemed, is it?
Regardless, people keep on playing Megabucks and dreaming large; that November MGM Grand winner hit for $12.46 million, explaining why Hodos‘ subsequent win was so ’small‘.
IGT says it has paid away significantly more than $728 million in total jackpots since 1986 in Nevada, and more than a billion dollars nationwide.
How Would You Play Megabucks Anyhow?
If reading about these victories (despite their downfalls) has gotten Megabucks fever going you need to know: the progressive jackpot is a dollar slot machine that requires a minimum of $3.00 to be eligible to hit the jackpot in you, here’s what. The jackpot auto-resets to $10 million; reports are that that may soon be bumped up to $11 million after each win.
IGT the company on whose machines Megabucks runs has some 750 slot machines in about 136 casinos throughout the Silver State. IGT owns these machines, offering each casino an item of the action, predicated on profits per device. Unlike numerous lotteries, this one is single state and for Nevada only, although IGT does have other Megabucks jackpots in California, New Jersey and Mississippi, aswell as on several Indian reservations. The jackpots tend to be on the smaller side because none of these states have as many casino venues as Nevada, however or as much hype.
With a Random Number Generator (RNG) controlling who wins, once the jackpot is hit on one machine, all the machines into the system are going to be instantaneously notified and reset towards the base jackpot again.
Odds of winning Megabucks vary, dependent on who you ask; ranging from 1 in 17 million up to 1 in 50 million. And one bit of hype that Megabucks can’t appear to shake are those tales of woe that befall all winners, in accordance with lore.
A few of these rumors may be based for a real story; that of 37-year-old cocktail waitress Cynthia Jay-Brennan, who hit Megabucks back in 2000 for $34. 9 million. A mere six weeks later, a driver that is drunk her car, leaving her sister dead and Jay-Brennan a quadriplegic. Of course, lots of individuals who haven’t won Megabucks have had the same fate and no money to simply help them, but logic never ever stopped a good urban legend from kicking up dust.
Other people who supposedly kicked it as a result of winning Megabucks included a 25-year-old winner in 2003, although IGT- who can protect winners‘ identities, unlike actual state lotteries claims the now 35-year-old is nevertheless one of the living and doing just fine.
Sheldon Adelson’s EuroVegas in Spain Goes Up in Smoke
Las vegas Sands CEO Sheldon Adelson would youn’t do much calmly is walking away from his EuroVegas casino task in Madrid, Spain (Image: keepcalmomatic)
Adios, señores y señoras. There will be no EuroVegas in Madrid in the end. After prolonged battles with Spanish nationals and the us government over dilemmas such as for instance public smoking laws and even bringing a casino towards the country that is ancient all, Las Vegas Sands Corp.’s CEO Sheldon Adelson made a decision later last week to pull the plug on the near $30 billion resort and gaming complex, telling investors that he felt the casino project ended up being not in his shareholders‘ best passions.
Asian Love Affair
Adelson really wants to refocus and zero in on his uber-successful projects that are asian. Along with Sands now swooping up some 80 percent of its annual video gaming revenues from the Macau and Singapore sectors, who could blame him?
The EuroVegas development which have been set to encompass 12 various properties, a staggering 36,000 resort rooms and six casinos, as well as department stores, restaurants, golf courses, performance venues and a convention that is major is now one for the real history publications. In the end, the cumbersome nature of bypassing existing and creating new laws simply became way too much bother for perhaps not enough potential reward.
‚That process has been excessively thorough, and even though the government and many others been employed by diligently on this work, we do not see a path in which the criteria had a need to move ahead using this large-scale development can be reached,‘ noted Adelson.
Smoking Mad
One of many key dilemmas facing Adelson was in fact strong and vocal opposition from anti-casino groups, mostly focused around making an exception for smoking in public, which is strictly banned in Spain. Despite a largely supportive government which saw the prospective for aiding Spain’s ailing economy by creating a possible 260,000 jobs within the next 10-12 years all of it started initially to not sound right anymore.
Even gaming analysts agreed it was time for you to go on.
‚It was becoming more apparent that the government that is spanish not meet all the conditions that Las Vegas Sands had requested, and now we could have viewed a choice to go forward without these conditions as an adverse,‘ stated RBC Capital Markets gaming analyst John Kempf, explaining to investors why the decision to walk away was made.
In the end whether to help keep their game face on or perhaps not, we will never know for sure Spain’s federal government acted themselves; the nation’s Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria told the press that Adelson had been throwing down too many needs for guarantees both legal and financial that, according to de Santamaria, ‚did not comply with Spanish law or compared to the European Union. like they pushed EuroVegas from the picture‘
De Santamaria went on to state that these demands encompassed critical line products such as for instance tax concessions, guarantees of settlement should future laws be introduced that might negatively impact the casino resort complex and lastly, a caveat that really no competition would be permitted to set foot in EuroVegas‘ arena.
For Adelson, enough is enough, in which he’s just prepared to move on.
‚Right now our focus is on encouraging Asian countries, like Japan and Korea, to dramatically enhance their tourism providing through the growth of integrated resorts there,‘ Adelson said.
Gaming analyst Steven Wieczynski of Stifel Nicolaus Capital Markets thinks Adelson is on the path that is right his decisions and focus.
‚Given the current early-stage efforts real-money-casino.club to introduce formalized gaming legislation in Japan, we sense [this] announcement may have been driven by the greater sense of certainty around a potential Japanese opportunity and management’s desire for keeping powder dry so that you can enhance its stature through what is going to be a fiercely competitive bidding process,‘ Wieczynski said associated with end of EuroVegas and renewed Asian region concentration.
Japan was concentrating on getting gambling legalized and casinos built and ready to roll in time for just what they project to be always a heavy tourist influx utilizing the Summer Olympic Games slated for Tokyo in 2020.
As for just how it all affected Sands Corp.’s stock profile, it don’t, much. As of late the other day, stocks closed at $76.57 in the NYSE, which represented a $0.39 jump per share.