So the news broke yesterday that the former Mayor of San Diego has a gambling problem, embezzled charity funds to fuel it, and is now in treatment. A sad story to be sure.
But the media are irresponsible jerks in this. The headlines are that she "lost over $1 billion" playing video poker. In the meat of the articles, they reference that she had W-2Gs totaling over $1 billion in a ten year span, but had lost more than that. Her attorney states that the net loss was over $13 million.
Last weekend I had around $35k coin in at Atlantis. These same journalists would be reporting the results of my trip as "he lost $19,000 in one weekend playing video poker!!!". Yes, my non-paying hands would total that. But if you used that number to scare my friends about my gambling, it completely misstates my trip, in which I lost a net of $30.
That said, the stats behind her gambling are interesting. Figure a minimum coin-in of $1.5 billion in ten years, $150 million per year. At 40 hours a week every week, that's $75k an hour. Even if she's playing fast, that's a minimum $75 per hand, and likely more given the time wasted on hand pays.
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