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17-03-2020/New Jersey Governor Chris Christie Requires Atlantic City Budget Slim Down for Municipal Workers

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is no longer crisscrossing the country on the presidential campaign trail, and thus the Republican, now in his 2nd gubernatorial term, has more time for you to refocus their efforts on issues facing their own state.
Nj-new Jersey Governor Chris Christie said enough will do on Thursday, calling on state lawmakers to assume control of the town. He made his situation designed with colorful graphs showing the reckless overspending that’s become rampant in Atlantic City.
No concern is more vital 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 permit hawaii to take control of its funds.
‘Even with the support plus the advice associated with Emergency Manager that we applied in 2015, Atlantic City took only modest steps to rein inside their costs,’ Christie said during the statehouse this week. ‘They face a $100 million budget shortfall this $100 million spending plan deficit this year . . year . They are the true numbers, that is the math, and these are the reality, and there’s no debate about 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 employees were paid over $100,000 throughout the last year that is fiscal a sum 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 times. Part-time council members were collectively paid $300,000, an expense regarded as extravagant in the eyes for the governor.
Unless hawaii legislature takes action to provide control of the gambling that is flailing to Trenton, Christie states he lacks the power to renegotiate contracts with public sector unions getting the ‘exorbitant expenses of the city employees in check.’
Takeover may be the Only Solution
Christie is contacting State Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto (D) to urge the chamber to hand over control of Atlantic City to the state. Prieto opposes that path, opting in favor of the PILOT (payment instead of taxes) program instead.
PILOT would enable casinos to pay taxes for a schedule that is fixed isn’t determined on property value or gaming revenues, which have actually both greatly diminished over the years, as tourism to the area has fallen.
Christie believes the PILOT program is a solution that is short-term won’t help Atlantic City’s long-term forecast. Financial analyst ensemble Moody’s generally seems to agree.
‘If just the bill that is PILOT [with no other measures instituted], the city will continue to face stress since the single bill is insufficient to restore Atlantic City’s fiscal health,’ the credit history corporation said recently. ‘ as the PILOT bill produces additional profits and avoids incurring casino that is additional liabilities, it is not enough to avoid crippling deficits of $30 to $40 million a 12 months, throughout the next 5 years.’
Christie thinks public workers require to step up to the plate into the most useful interest of the city, but it appears some seem to be doing that.
After Atlantic City Mayor Don Guardian (R) threatened a city closure of non-essential employees, various unions proposed having to pay employees every one month in place of two, a modification that would let the federal government to continue operating until the next quarterly tax payments are received on May 1.
But that is just 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 casino that is social has survived a class action lawsuit attempt from a disgruntled Illinois customer who claimed that the free gaming platform offers ‘nothing more than camouflaged illegal games of possibility.’
IGT’s DoubleDown casino that is social straight back a class action lawsuit effort from a 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 in the web site before determining she wanted to claw back every play cent. Phillips claimed that because DoubleDown uses ‘gambling mechanics’ in its games, it really is tantamount to gambling that is actual.
Well, except for real money being involved, but besides that.
In a course action lawsuit filed at the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, Phillips said she wanted the DoubleDown web site to be shut down and money refunded to customers in Illinois. The lawsuit had been filed on behalf of all citizens associated with state that has lost over $50 playing at DoubleDown, under the antiquated Illinois Loss Recovery Act (ILRA).
Claw-back Law Dragged Up
The 19th century law states that any Illinois gambler who loses $50 or more gets the right to sue the winner getting the amount of money straight back. It also states which should the losing gambler maybe not sue the winner within sixth months, then ‘any person’ is allowed to sue on behalf of all losers, for up to three times the amount.
The law was originally made to protect destitute families who’d had their last dollar stolen by family members, that was subsequently gambled away.
Phillips states she began playing on DoubleDown in January of 2013, and soon began purchasing virtual (and value-less) chips with genuine money, once she had played through the original way to obtain free chips. She argues, they had a monetary value, just like chips purchased in a casino, and therefore the services academized essay writing service offered by DoubleDown were tantamount to illegal gambling because she paid for the chips.
According to Phillips, in addition to ILRA, DoubleDown was in violation of the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business procedures Act, and was guilty of unjustly enriching itself through the use of ‘gambling devices,’ another no-no under Illinois state law.
The filing would have had to establish that online social casino games could be thought as ‘gambling devices,’ and that IGT had procured money from the plaintiff within an illegal manner.
Identify ‘Gambling’
But the judge, unlike Phillips, ended up beingn’t buying any of it.
JudgeEdmond Chang noted that ILRA requires a winner and a loser from the results of a gambling proposition. The social casino site cannot lose anything from the proposition, and so Phillips was on shaky ground because virtual chips bought from DoubleDown cannot be cashed in for real money.
In fact, broadly speaking, Phillips was asking the court to reconsider the definition that is very of as it’s construed in virtually every state in the united states: specifically, the proposition that something of value is risked upon the outcome of an event or game that is at the mercy of chance within the hope of receiving another thing of equal or greater value.
While paying for virtual chips constitutes a stake that is financial without any financial reward involved, no form of gambling has occurred, by any legal definition, at the very least.
In fact, one could say that Phillip’s decision to sue DoubleDown is a greater exemplory instance of gambling than something that happens on the casino site that is social. And in this instance, it absolutely was a bet that is losing.
Money Laundering and Suspicious Activity at Casinos Continues to go up, FinCEN Reports
Money laundering is serious company.
Unfortunately for those in the casino industry, criminals have long relished the attractiveness associated with floor cage as being the perfect instrument to clean dirty money into purportedly legitimate funds.
‘Washing’ cash by trading it in for chips then cashing it down again has become a method that is preferred of laundering by criminals. Now FinCEN wants the industry to better monitor it self for possible crimes being committed by patrons, and the issues have become global. (Image: i5design.com)
Since 1996, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a bureau of this United States Department of the Treasury, requires institutions to file Currency Transaction Reports when a client transacts over $10,000 in just one day. In addition, federal legislation mandates that a suspicious task report (SAR) be completed if the patron is suspected of participating in the laundering of money.
With thousands of commercial banks within the United States, including smaller regional institutions, FinCEN is cracking down on money laundering by threatening non-conforming banks with financial penalties.
With no option but to comply with FinCEN, SARs filed by banking institutions rose from 288,343 in 2003 to 972,037 in 2013, a 70 percent increase in just 10 years. But, a decline that is unexpected SARs followed in 2014, and with it arrived an increase in suspicious activity reports being filed by the casino, securities, and insurance industries.
What does it all mean?
Underground and Out of Sight
This week titled, ‘Losing Count: US Terror Rules Drive Money Underground,’ the argument is made that current FinCEN rules might actually be hampering the government’s ability to monitor suspicious activity and intercept potential terrorism in a Wall Street Journal report.
Afraid of dealing with significant financial penalties for facilitating a suspicious client’s demand, banking institutions are quickly closing accounts after filing SARs. This forces the perpetrator that is alleged use alternative ways to move money, and the funds efficiently vanish from regulatory oversight.
‘What do we do, within the law enforcement arena, when the money goes underground?’ FBI financial crimes specialist Patrick Fallon pondered in the piece. ‘It’s what you don’t understand that’s the frightening thing.’
Those who are indeed trying to facilitate money movement illegally may be drawn more and more to the casino cage as banks refuse to provide services for suspected launderers.
And while bank SARs dropped by nearly nine percent between 2013-2014, the reports increased in the casino industry by 69 per cent during the time frame that is same.
Casinos Feeling the Heat
FinCEN Director Jennifer Calvery said her office’s 340 employees are successfully safeguarding the united states system that is financial promoting national security, and SARs play a vital role in those efforts.
‘The information that casinos as well as other finance institutions offer is employed to confront terrorist organizations, rogue countries, WMD proliferators, foreign grand corruption, and increasingly serious cyber threats,’ Calvery stated in 2014. ‘Violating the BSA (Bank Secrecy Act) can result in FinCEN imposing civil charges against the casino it self.’
And imposing penalties they are, as Calvery’s team levied monetary fines on four gambling companies year that is last. Such as was the US Dept. of the Treasury’s $8 million penalty on Caesars Palace Las vegas, nevada for what FinCEN found to be a violation that is willful of BSA and failure to adhere to SAR protocols.
The recent alleged involvement of two Philippines banks in a $83 million cyber heist through the New York Federal Reserve has shined an even brighter light on this troubling issue, and you also can bet that regulatory hands internationally will likely be moving in to the casino industry for a closer look.
The list of sites, which investigators have stated were based on servers outside Italy and now have been impounded, are the following: 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 web sites might have been targeted in error. Austria’s SKS365 Group, which runs Planet365, has categorically distanced itself from any involvement, stating that the group that is criminal exploited Planet365’s brand reputation to lure bettors to copycat internet sites.
OIA Services Ltd, meanwhile, which owns Betaland, says that Betaland.com has been closed to Italian players for over a year, and the internet sites related to the gambling ring that used the Betaland expansion did so without permission and were ‘rightly already darkened to get into, as unlicensed.’
Tancredi Links
Italian authorities said that the ring also had links to Luigi Tancredi, a person understood in Italy as ‘the King of Slots’ for his operations in the legal land-based gambling world.
Tancredi is thought to be the owner of DollaroPoker, and was arrested in January and accused to be the mastermind of the gambling ring that operated 12,000 online gaming and lottery video terminals in bars, cafes and gaming halls throughout Italy.