
We have been told this is movie producer Mark Hodos from Florida, the latest Nevada Megabucks champion of $10.3 million (Image: IGT)
There must be something floating around within the desert at this time of the year. Last 12 months in mid-December, a lady real-money-casino.club playing A international 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. an executive producer of ‘All American Christmas Carol’ a type of trailer trash version of the Dickens classic, it would appear champion Mark Hodos says the moolah will go back into his Hollywood manufacturing company. Although we see no mention of him in the film’s IMDb, but we’re naturally cynical and then we say ‘Bollywood. if this guy says ‘Hollywood,”
If he’s legitimately a producer, then way to save yourself numerous grovelling L.A. investor pitch meetings, sir.
Two in a Row
Hodos’ win followed a player who hit the Megabucks this November as well, also during the MGM Grand, which is the casino that is biggest on the Las Vegas Strip. The Megabucks slot machines are on the same IGT Nevada pipeline, making for huge payouts, with minimums of $10 million and more added since it doesn’t get hit.
With no state that is official per se, 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 many urban legends, including the one that always seems to sit within 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 in the pot. Based on a $35-million win, it’s estimated that winners will only get an initial check of approximately $1.4 million. The big champion then has up to ninety days to determine if they need to have the balance in yearly installments, which will be paid out over 25 years, or take a lump amount which will be only 60 percent of the actual win total; based on that $35 million, that would emerge to ‘just’ $21 million, so obviously most Megabucks winners get for Option #1.
A Pound of Flesh to the Feds, Of Course
Don’t go shopping for a Beverly Hills estate just yet though; since the tax that is minimum on that annual income will be 40 per cent; at the least Nevada doesn’t have a state tax, which someone who won the California Megabucks would have to spend because well, for instance. So on your $35 million, that is $13,400,000 going towards some very nice IRS Xmas 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. Instantly it is not as life-changing as it seemed, is it?
Regardless, people keep on playing Megabucks and dreaming large; that MGM Grand winner hit for $12.46 million, explaining why Hodos’ subsequent win was so ‘small’ november.
IGT says it has paid away significantly more than $728 million in total jackpots since 1986 in Nevada, and significantly more than a billion dollars nationwide.
How Do You Play Megabucks Anyway?
If reading about these wins (despite their downfalls) has gotten Megabucks fever going in you, here’s what you will need to know: the modern jackpot is really a buck slot machine that needs a minimum of $3.00 to be qualified to hit the jackpot. The jackpot auto-resets to $10 million; reports are that that may soon be bumped up to $11 million after each win.
IGT the going company on whose machines Megabucks runs has some 750 slot machines in about 136 casinos throughout the Silver State. IGT owns these machines, providing each casino an item of the action, considering profits per device. This one is single state and for Nevada only, although IGT does have other Megabucks jackpots in California, New Jersey and Mississippi, as well as on several Indian reservations unlike many lotteries. 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, other devices within the system are instantaneously notified and reset to your base jackpot again.
Odds of winning Megabucks vary, based on who you ask; ranging from 1 in 17 million up to at least one in 50 million. And one bit of hype that Megabucks can’t seem 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 2000 for $34. 9 million. A mere six months later, a drunk driver hit her car, leaving her sister dead and Jay-Brennan a quadriplegic. Needless to say, a lot of those that haven’t won Megabucks have had the fate that is same no money to help them, but logic never ever stopped good urban legend from throwing up dust.
Others who supposedly kicked it because of winning Megabucks included a 25-year-old champion in 2003, although IGT- who can protect winners’ identities, unlike actual state lotteries claims the now 35-year-old is still one of the living and doing fine.
Sheldon Adelson’s EuroVegas in Spain Goes Up in Smoke
Las Vegas Sands CEO Sheldon Adelson who doesn’t do much calmly is walking away from their EuroVegas casino task in Madrid, Spain (Image: keepcalmomatic)
Adios, señores y señoras. There is going to be no EuroVegas in Madrid all things considered. After prolonged battles with Spanish nationals and the government over issues 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 the decision late last week to pull the plug in the near $30 billion resort and gaming complex, telling investors he felt the casino project had been no further in his shareholders’ best interests.
Asian Love Affair
Adelson would like to refocus and zero in on his uber-successful Asian jobs instead. Sufficient reason for Sands now swooping up some 80 percent of its annual gaming revenues from the Macau and Singapore sectors, who could blame him?
The EuroVegas development which was indeed set to encompass 12 different properties, a staggering 36,000 hotel rooms and six casinos, as well as stores, restaurants, golf courses, performance venues and a convention that is major is now one for the annals publications. The cumbersome nature of bypassing existing and creating new regulations simply became too much bother for not enough potential reward in the end.
‘That process has been extremely thorough, and while the government and many others been employed by diligently on this work, we do not see a course in which the criteria needed seriously to move forward with this large-scale development can be reached,’ noted Adelson.
Smoking Mad
One of many key issues facing Adelson was in fact strong and opposition that is vocal anti-casino groups, mostly focused around making an exception for smoking in public, which is strictly banned in Spain. Despite a government that is largely supportive saw the possible for aiding Spain’s ailing economy by creating a possible 260,000 jobs on the next 10-12 years all of it began to not make sense anymore.
Even gaming analysts agreed it was time to go on.
‘It had been becoming more apparent that the Spanish government could not meet all the conditions that Las Vegas Sands had requested, and now we could have viewed a determination to go forward without these conditions as a negative,’ stated RBC Capital Markets gaming analyst John Kempf, explaining to investors why the decision to disappear was made.
In the conclusion whether to help keep their game face on or perhaps not, we will never know without a doubt Spain’s federal government acted themselves; the country’s Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria told the press that Adelson had been throwing away too numerous requests for guarantees both legal and financial that, according to de Santamaria, ‘did not comply with Spanish legislation or that of the European Union. like they pushed EuroVegas out from the picture’
De Santamaria went on to say that these demands encompassed line that is critical such as for instance tax concessions, guarantees of payment 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 base in EuroVegas’ arena.
For Adelson, enough is enough, in which he’s just willing 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 recent early-stage efforts to introduce formalized video gaming legislation in Japan, we sense [this] announcement could have been driven by the greater sense of certainty around a potential Japanese opportunity and management’s desire for keeping powder dry in an effort to enhance its stature through what will likely be a fiercely competitive bidding process,’ Wieczynski stated of the end of EuroVegas and renewed Asian region concentration.
Japan was focusing on getting gambling legalized and casinos built and ready to move in time for what they project to be always a heavy tourist influx because of the Summer Olympic Games slated for Tokyo in 2020.
As for exactly how it all affected Sands Corp.’s stock profile, it didn’t, much. As of late week that is last stocks closed at $76.57 regarding the NYSE, which represented a $0.39 jump per share.
