For $2 million dollars, Mr. Watanabe could have built himself a pretty nice replica of a casino all for his own use.

He could have hired a black jack dealer, professional slot machines, the whole nine yards.
He could have even hired some Vegas hookers for atmosphere.
And, when he lost he would be losing to himself!
So, what does a guy worth well over $100 million do? He gambles for the excitement. He’s not gambling to win any money, that’s for darn sure.
There are probably five people in the entire state of Nevada who gamble to win. Those are the professional sports betters who know what they are doing and make a really good living at it.
The rest of these miserable unfortunates have problems, severe ones.
Most people who gamble to this degree, gamble because they are unhappy.
Mr. Watanabe would have been far better off to spend this money on a new Corvette and a few Vegas hookers than to waste his money in the Casinos.
Most people gamble to this degree to lose, rather than win.
In any case, I applaud the one Casino owner who threw him out and barred him from his establishment. He knew the guy was trouble and wanted nothing to do with him!
Now, did the Casinos contribute to his problem? Sure they did. Are they liable? Heck no.
I was going to invest in a fund the other day, and then I thought about it several times and decided against it.
Why? The picture of the fund founders looked almost identical to Bernie Madoff! The fund had only been founded in 2007 and the interest rate paid was way too high! In other words, it was too good to be true, so I didn’t do it.
Now, there is an old saying. “We forge our own chains in life, but life gives us plenty of raw materials.”
There’s always going to be someone out there to scam you if you allow it.
While I feel for Mr. Watanabe, he doesn’t have a legal leg to stand on. Even if he was drunk and loaded up on pain killers, who made him go to the Casino to begin with?
The Casino is the exact reverse of the stock market. Over the long haul in a Casino, you can bet you will lose all your money, even it you intiallly win. In the stock market, over the long haul, the market will go up.
So, the very fact that Mr. Watanabe wanted excitement and chose gambling, was his choice. He could have chose to go for therapy, go to the gym to work out, find a nice girl, find a bad girl, or just chill.
No one made him go to the Casino. So, I think that he could ask them very nicely if they would be willing to work out some kind of rebate with him, under the full knowledge that they don’t have to do anything, or he could join GA and be sadder but wiser and actually take responsibility for his actions.
Face it. If he can parlay his father’s business into $300 million, he could do that again. The guy is obviously no dummy. Had he been really smart, he would have given his sister a 50% interest to hold onto in case of a rainy day or put $50 million in an irrevocable trust to guard against such stupidities!
While I am sadded by this loss for Mr. Watanabe, perhaps its time for him to grow up.
What’s that other saying? “Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations.”
He voluntarily went to the Casino and I’m sure he enjoyed every minute of being a high flyer, both figuratively and actually. But, he made a choice. He needs to ask himself in his heart of hearts, way down deep inside, why was he acting so self destructively?
He is a businessman. He didn’t need the money. He craved the excitement and was acting out some psychological conflict.

Now before I get any rebuttals on this point, go read the text book, it’s right there in black and white.

- Louis Ciola

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• The stock market is only gambling for those who choose to gamble.
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• Reposting from MW:
• The FED is increasing fees that it collects from banks to cover costs of taking over failing banks.

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