Las Vegas gunman Stephen Paddock enjoyed gambling, country music, lived quiet life before massacre

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Post Nation
Las Vegas gunman Stephen Paddock enjoyed gambling, country music, lived quiet life before massacre

By William Wan, Sandhya Somashekhar, Aaron C. Davis and Barbara Liston October 2 at 1:10 PM

Before he opened fire late Sunday, killing at least 58 people at a country music festival on the Las Vegas Strip, the gunman Stephen Paddock was living out his retirement as a high-stakes professional gambler in a quiet town outside Las Vegas.

Paddock, 64, would disappear for days at a time, frequenting casinos with his longtime girlfriend, neighbors said. Relatives also said Paddock had been living out his retirement years, visiting Las Vegas to gamble and take in concerts. ... Eric Paddock said his brother often gambled in tens of thousands of dollars. "My brother is not like you and me. He plays high stakes video poker," he said. "He sends me a text that says he won $250,000 at the casino."

Eric Paddock said he showed the FBI three years of text messages from his brother and said he had no information whether Stephen Paddock had gambling debts or was financially troubled. "I have absolutely no information he lost a bunch of money. The casino would know that," he said.

Eric Paddock said his brother previously worked as an accountant but also had real estate investments, including houses and apartments around Orlando. He said Stephen Paddock had no kids and plenty of money to play with. ... Eric Paddock said he did not know of any mental illness, alcohol or drug problems in his brother's life.
....

William Wan is the Post's roving national correspondent, based in Washington, D.C. He previously served as the paper’s religion reporter and diplomatic correspondent and for three years as the Post’s China correspondent in Beijing. Follow @thewanreport

Sandhya Somashekhar is the social change reporter for the Washington Post. Follow @sandhyawp

Aaron Davis is a reporter for The Post’s Investigative team. Follow @byaaroncdavis

[Cattledog]

1. Paddock not an avid gun guy at all

Eric Paddock, a brother of Stephen Paddock who lives in Orlando, Fla., said he had made a statement to the police. In an interview with CBS, he said that his brother was “not an avid gun guy at all,” adding, “if he had have killed my kids, I couldn’t be more dumbfounded.”

“The fact that he had those kind of weapons is just — where the hell did he get automatic weapons?” Eric Paddock asked.

“He has no military background or anything like that,” he added. “He’s a guy who lived in a house in Mesquite and drove down and gambled in Las Vegas.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/02/us/las-vegas-shooting.html?action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=span-abc-region&region=span-abc-region&WT.nav=span-abc-region

[Skittles]

4. yet they found 18 weapons in his home, and several thousand rounds of ammuniton

sounds like he did not know his brother very well

edited to say, that, along with explosives, is what they found in his HOTEL ROOM

jeez, I wonder what they will find in his HOME

[exboyfil]

2. I have a tough time believing he didn't bleed himself

dry playing "high stakes video poker". I could see in a face to face game with other opponents how you could win (tells and better able to calculate odds in your head) over time, but video poker is entirely probabilities, and probabilities that are set to always lead to the house winning over time.

One possibility is if you can exploit the programming to always play low value hands until a pattern emerges that is in your favor.

[LovingA2andMI]

3. Of Course, He Did.....

The Excuses Are Every Growing By The Moment, Section, Hour.....