
Our company is told this is movie producer Mark Hodos from Florida, the most recent Nevada Megabucks winner of $10.3 million (Image: IGT)
There needs to be something floating around into the desert at this time of the year. Last 12 months in mid-December, a female 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 guy has hit a $10.3 million one during the MGM Grand during the week that is same year. an executive producer of ‘All American Christmas Carol’ a kind of trailer trash form of the Dickens classic, it would appear champion Mark Hodos says the moolah goes back into 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 guy 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 since well, also during the MGM Grand, which could be the biggest casino in the Las Vegas Strip. The Megabucks slot machines are typical on the same IGT Nevada pipeline, making for large payouts, with minimums of $10 million and more added because it doesn’t get hit.
With no state that is official by itself, Megabucks is the equivalent, and during its 19-year history in Nevada, has brought numerous millionaires into presence. It’s also the basis for most metropolitan legends, including one that always seems to sit within the shadows with any lottery win: the onset of very luck that is bad.
One piece of bad luck that cannot be avoided is the government’s greedy paws in the pot. Based on a $35-million win, it’s estimated that winners will simply get an initial check of about $1.4 million. The big winner then has up to 90 days to ascertain if they desire to get the balance in annual installments, that will be paid out over 25 years, or take a lump sum which will be only 60 % associated with the actual win total; based on that $35 million, that would come out 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; since the minimum taxation rate on that annual income will nevertheless be 40 %; at the very least Nevada does not have a state tax, which someone whom won the California Megabucks would need to pay because well, for example. Therefore on your $35 million, that is $13,400,000 going towards some very IRS that is nice Xmas 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 following 25 years. Suddenly it isn’t as life-changing as it seemed, is it?
Regardless, people keep on playing Megabucks and dreaming big; that November MGM Grand winner hit for $12.46 million, explaining why Hodos’ subsequent win was so ‘small’.
IGT says it has paid out more than $728 million in total jackpots since 1986 in Nevada, and more than a billion dollars nationwide.
How Can You Enjoy Megabucks Anyway?
If reading about these wins (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 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 machine. Unlike many lotteries, this one is solitary state as well as for Nevada only, although IGT does have other Megabucks jackpots in California, New Jersey and Mississippi, as well as on several Indian reservations. Because none of the states have actually as many casino venues as Nevada, however or as much hype the jackpots are usually on the smaller side.
All other machines in the system will be instantaneously notified and reset to the base jackpot again with a Random Number Generator (RNG) controlling who wins, once the jackpot is hit on one machine.
Odds of winning Megabucks vary, depending 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 seem to shake are those tales of woe that befall all champions, based on lore.
A few of these rumors may be based for a true 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. Of course, an abundance of those that haven’t won Megabucks have had the fate that is same no money to greatly help them, but logic never ever stopped good urban legend from throwing up dust.
Other people who supposedly kicked it as a result of winning Megabucks included a winner that is 25-year-old 2003, although IGT- who can protect winners’ identities, unlike real state lotteries claims the now 35-year-old is nevertheless among the living and doing just 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 will be no EuroVegas in Madrid in the end. After prolonged battles with Spanish nationals and the us government over dilemmas such as for example public smoking laws and even bringing a casino to the country that is ancient all, Las Vegas Sands Corp.’s CEO Sheldon Adelson determined later last week to pull the plug on the near $30 billion resort and gaming complex, telling investors that he felt the casino project had been no longer in his shareholders’ most readily useful passions.
Asian Love Affair
Adelson would like to refocus and zero in on his uber-successful projects that are asian. Sufficient winner casino bonus codes 2016 reason for Sands now swooping up some 80 percent of its annual gaming profits from the Macau and Singapore sectors, who could blame him?
The EuroVegas development which was set to encompass 12 various properties, a staggering 36,000 hotel rooms and six casinos, as well as department stores, restaurants, golf courses, performance venues and a major convention center is now one for the annals books. 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 excessively thorough, and even though the government and many others have worked diligently on this work, we do not see a course where the criteria had a need to move ahead with this specific development that is large-scale be reached,’ noted Adelson.
Smoking Mad
One of the key dilemmas facing Adelson have been 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 government that is largely supportive saw the prospective for aiding Spain’s ailing economy by creating a potential 260,000 jobs throughout the next 10-12 years it all started to not sound right anymore.
Even video gaming analysts consented it was time to go on.
‘It ended up being becoming more apparent that the Spanish government could maybe not meet all the conditions that Las Vegas Sands had requested, and now we could have viewed a choice to move forward without these conditions as a poor,’ stated RBC Capital Markets gaming analyst John Kempf, explaining to investors why the decision to leave was made.
In the finish whether to help keep their game face on or otherwise not, we will never know for sure Spain’s government acted themselves; the united states’s Deputy Prime Minister Soraya Saenz de Santamaria told the press that Adelson had been throwing out too numerous needs for guarantees both legal and financial that, according to de Santamaria, ‘did not comply with Spanish law or that of the European Union. like they pushed EuroVegas out of the picture’
De Santamaria went on to say that these needs encompassed critical line things such as for example tax concessions, guarantees of settlement should future laws be introduced that might negatively impact the casino resort complex and finally, a caveat that really no competition would be permitted to set base in EuroVegas’ arena.
For Adelson, enough is enough, and he’s simply ready 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 believes Adelson is on the path that is right his decisions and focus.
‘Given the present early-stage efforts to introduce formalized gaming legislation in Japan, we sense [this] announcement might have been driven by the greater sense of certainty around a potential Japanese opportunity and management’s curiosity about keeping powder dry in order to enhance its stature through what will likely be a fiercely competitive bidding process,’ Wieczynski said of the end of EuroVegas and renewed Asian region concentration.
Japan is focusing on getting gambling legalized and casinos built and able to move with time for just what they project to be always a tourist that is heavy 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 week that is last shares closed at $76.57 on the NYSE, which represented a $0.39 jump per share.