Nj-new Jersey Governor Chris Christie Calls for 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 as such the Republican, now in his second gubernatorial term, has more time for you to refocus their efforts on issues facing his or her own state.
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 built with colorful graphs displaying the overspending that is reckless’s become rampant in Atlantic City.
No concern is more paramount in New Jersey right now than Atlantic City’s current crisis that is financial. On Thursday, Christie told his fellow legislators that it’s into the city’s best interest to allow their state to take close control of its finances.
‘Even utilizing the help and the advice for the Emergency Manager that we set up in 2015, Atlantic City took only modest steps to rein within their costs,’ Christie said at the statehouse this week. ‘They face a $100 million spending plan shortfall this year, $100 million spending plan deficit this year . . . They are the numbers, this will be the math, and these are the reality, and there’s no debate about this.’
Park Place & Boardwalk Salaries
In Christie’s arguments, the governor highlighted exactly what he believes to be gross overspending on municipal workers. Armed with charts and graphs, he showed that 119 city employees were paid over $100,000 throughout the last year that is fiscal an amount which doesn’t even include the ‘Lamborghini-level’ healthcare and benefits package that accompanies those salaries.
Christie also stressed the fact Atlantic City paid $6.6 million in 2015 to retiring public employees, primarily to compensate unused sick and vacation days. Part-time council members were collectively compensated $300,000, a cost regarded as extravagant in the optical eyes regarding the governor.
Unless hawaii legislature takes action to give control of the flailing gambling mecca to Trenton, Christie states he lacks the power to renegotiate contracts with public sector unions getting the ‘exorbitant expenses of the town employees in check.’
Takeover could 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 in place of taxes) program rather.
PILOT would allow casinos to pay taxes on a schedule that is fixed isn’t determined on property value or gaming revenues, which have both significantly diminished over the years, as tourism to the area has dropped.
Christie believes the PILOT program is a short-term solution that won’t help Atlantic City’s long-term forecast. Financial analyst outfit Moody’s seems to agree.
‘If only 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 wellness,’ the credit rating corporation said recently. ‘ While the PILOT bill produces additional profits and avoids incurring additional casino tax liabilities, it is insufficient to avoid crippling deficits of $30 to $40 million a 12 months, over the next five years.’
Christie believes public workers need to step up to the plate in the best interest of their city, but it appears some seem to be doing that.
Every four weeks instead of two, a change that would allow the government to continue operating until the next quarterly tax payments are received on May 1 after Atlantic City Mayor Don Guardian (R) threatened a city closure of non-essential employees, various unions proposed paying employees.
But that is only one away, so action will need to be taken, and soon month.
DoubleDown Social Casino Illinois Customer Lawsuit Dismissed, Angry Patron Lost $1K in Virtual Chips
IGT’s DoubleDown multiplatform social casino website has survived a class action lawsuit attempt from the disgruntled Illinois customer who reported that the free gaming platform offers ‘nothing more than camouflaged unlawful games of chance.’
IGT’s DoubleDown social casino overcome straight back a class action lawsuit effort from the disgruntled Illinois online customer this week, who claimed that its operations had been tantamount to ‘real’ gambling. (Image: onlinewin.minnim.org)
Plaintiff Margo Phillips blew $1,000 in real money on virtual, value-less potato chips regarding the web site before determining she desired to claw back every play cent. Phillips claimed that because DoubleDown makes use of ‘gambling mechanics’ in its games, it is tantamount to gambling that is actual.
Well, except for real money being involved, but other than that.
In a class action lawsuit filed at the Circuit Court of Cook County, Illinois, Phillips said she wanted the DoubleDown site to be shut down and money refunded to customers in Illinois. The lawsuit had been filed on behalf of all citizens of this state that has lost over $50 playing at DoubleDown, under the Illinois that is antiquated Loss Act (ILRA).
Claw-back Law Dragged Up
The 19th century law states that any Illinois gambler who loses $50 or more gets the straight to sue the champion to get the amount of money back. It also states that should the losing gambler not sue the winner within sixth months, then ‘any person’ is permitted to sue with respect to all losers, for up to 3 times the amount.
The law was originally built to protect destitute families who’d had their dollar that is last stolen family relations, that has been afterwards gambled away.
Phillips claims she began playing on DoubleDown in January of 2013, and soon began purchasing digital (and value-less) chips with genuine money, once she had played through the original availability of free chips. She argues, they had a monetary value, just like chips purchased in a casino, and therefore the services offered by DoubleDown were tantamount to illegal gambling because she paid for the chips.
According to Phillips, as well as ILRA, DoubleDown was in violation of the Illinois Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business techniques Act, and was guilty of unjustly enriching itself with the use of ‘gambling devices,’ another no-no under Illinois state legislation.
The filing could have had to establish that online social casino games is defined as ‘gambling devices,’ and that IGT had procured cash from the plaintiff in a manner that is illegal.
Establish ‘Gambling’
But the judge, unlike Phillips, wasn’t buying any of it.
JudgeEdmond Chang noted that ILRA requires a success and a loser more chilli slot through the results of a gambling proposition. Because virtual chips bought from DoubleDown may not be cashed in for real money, the social casino site cannot lose any such thing from the idea, and therefore Phillips had been on shaky ground.
In fact, broadly speaking, Phillips was asking the court to reconsider the definition that is very of as it is construed in almost every state in the united states: namely, the proposition that something of value is risked upon the end result of a event or game that is at the mercy of opportunity into the hope of receiving something else 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 least.
In fact, you could say that Phillip’s decision to sue DoubleDown is a definitely better example of gambling than anything that happens on the casino site that is social. And in this case, it 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 the people in the casino industry, criminals have long relished the attractiveness associated with the floor cage as being the instrument that is perfect clean dirty money into purportedly legitimate funds.
‘Washing’ cash by trading it in for chips and then cashing it down again has become a method that is preferred of laundering by criminals. Now FinCEN wants the industry to monitor itself for better potential crimes being committed by clients, and the dilemmas have actually become global. (Image: i5design.com)
Since 1996, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), a bureau of the United States Department of the Treasury, calls for institutions to file Currency Transaction Reports when a customer transacts over $10,000 in just one day. In addition, federal legislation mandates that a dubious activity report (SAR) be completed if the patron is suspected of participating in the laundering of cash.
With thousands of commercial banks within the United States, including smaller institutions that are regional FinCEN was cracking down on money laundering by threatening non-conforming banking institutions with financial penalties.
Without any 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. However, a unexpected decline in SARs followed in 2014, and along with it arrived a growth in suspicious activity reports being filed by the casino, securities, and insurance companies.
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 facing significant financial penalties for facilitating a customer that is suspicious request, banks are rapidly closing accounts after filing SARs. This forces the perpetrator that is alleged use alternative solutions to move money, and the funds effectively vanish from regulatory oversight.
‘What do we do, in the police arena, when the money goes underground?’ FBI crimes that are financial Patrick Fallon pondered into the piece. ‘It’s what you do not realize that’s the frightening thing.’
As banks refuse to provide services for suspected launderers, those who find themselves indeed trying to facilitate money movement illegally may be drawn more to the casino cage.
And while bank SARs dropped by nearly nine percent between 2013-2014, the reports increased in the casino industry by 69 percent during the time frame that is same.
Casinos Feeling the Heat
FinCEN Director Jennifer Calvery said her office’s 340 workers are successfully safeguarding the US financial system and promoting national security, and SARs play an essential role in those efforts.
‘The information that casinos along with other financial institutions provide is used to confront terrorist organizations, rogue countries, WMD proliferators, foreign grand corruption, and increasingly serious cyber threats,’ Calvery said in 2014. ‘Violating the BSA (Bank Secrecy Act) might result in FinCEN imposing civil charges against the casino it self.’
And imposing penalties they are, as Calvery’s team levied financial fines on four gambling companies this past year alone. Especially ended up being the US Dept. of the Treasury’s $8 million penalty on Caesars Palace Las Vegas for what FinCEN found to become a willful violation of the BSA and failure to adhere to SAR protocols.
The recent alleged involvement of two Philippines banks in an $83 million cyber heist through the New York Federal Reserve has shined an even brighter light with this troubling issue, and you can bet that regulatory hands worldwide is going to be moving in to the casino industry for a better look.
The list of web sites, which investigators have said were centered on servers outside Italy and 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 those sites might have been targeted in error. Austria’s SKS365 Group, which operates Planet365, has categorically distanced itself from any involvement, stating that the group that is criminal exploited Planet365’s brand name reputation to lure bettors to copycat sites.
OIA solutions Ltd, meanwhile, which has Betaland, says that Betaland.com has been closed to players that are italian over a year, and the internet sites related to the gambling band which used the Betaland expansion did so without permission and had been ‘rightly currently darkened to access, as unlicensed.’
Tancredi Hyper Links
Italian authorities said that the ring also had links to Luigi Tancredi, a guy understood in Italy as ‘the King of Slots’ for his operations in the legal gambling world that is land-based.
Tancredi is considered to be the master of DollaroPoker, and was arrested in January and accused to be the mastermind of the gambling ring that operated 12,000 gaming that is online lottery video terminals in pubs, cafes and gaming halls throughout Italy.