Terrance Watanabe
…are soon parted. Or, to put it another way, the easiest way to be a gambling millionaire is to start out as a billionaire.
One Terrance Watanabe is an object lesson on being idle rich and stupid equals bankruptcy. He is in the process of sueing several Las Vegas casinos for letting him gamble while he was drunk – which is illegal apparently! I thought being drunk while gambling was prerequisite.
Anyway the billionaire is on a long shot and I bet his family which he used to control are proud of him. He also faces 16 years in prison for non payment of I.O.U – suddenly my appreciation of the guy has gone up. Why should he pay his I.O.U’s when he has lost his bet?
OK the casinos may have provided his own bar manager while he was losing his money hand over fist, when he was playing he may have been the centre of attraction, stopping the traffic with his mad big bets, and, at one point he may have been 5% of Las Vegas total revenue. That does not stop the need to have him locked up for 16 years.
16 years in prison does seem a bit rough so hence the counter claim by Mr Watanabe and I hope all goes well for him. After all when the bankers laid 20/1 shots at 250/1, lost and nearly brought the whole capitalist system down, what did we do as a society? We gave them more billions, saving their business and now they are threatening to leave the country if we do not let them have their bonuses.
Another reason why the people who have the I.O.U’s should let Terrance Watanbe off is that he must have brought loads of fun and enoyment to the good people of Las Vegas both residence and visitors and in the end he does give money to charity. Also, as a morality tale it makes us feel better that there are bigger mugs out there than us lowly two bit punters.