Download or read book The Devil s Casino written by Vicky Ward and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2011-04-05 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The inside story of what really happened at Lehman Brothers and why it failed In The Devil's Casino: Friendship, Betrayal, and the High Stakes Games Played Inside Lehman Brothers, investigative writer and Vanity Fair contributing editor Vicky Ward takes readers inside Lehman's highly charged offices. What Ward uncovers is a much bigger story than Lehman losing at the risky game of collateralized debt obligations, swaps, and leverage. A can't put it down page turner that opens the world of Wall Street to view unlike any book since Bonfire of the Vanities, except that The Devil's Casino isn't fiction. Details what went on behind-the-scenes the weekend Lehman Brothers failed, as well as inside Lehman during the twenty years preceding it Describes the feudal culture that proved both Lehman's strength and its Achilles' heel Written by Vicky Ward, one of today's most connected business and finance writers On Wall Street, Lehman Brothers was cheekily known as "the cat with nine lives." But as The Devil's Casino documents, this cat pushed its luck too far and died?the victim of men and women blinded by arrogance.

Download or read book Satan s Playground written by Paul J Vanderwood and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2010-04-09 with total page 410 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Satan’s Playground chronicles the rise and fall of the tumultuous and lucrative gambling industry that developed just south of the U.S.-Mexico border in the early twentieth century. As prohibitions against liquor, horse racing, gambling, and prostitution swept the United States, the vice industry flourished in and around Tijuana, to the extent that reformers came to call the town “Satan’s Playground,” unintentionally increasing its licentious allure. The area was dominated by Agua Caliente, a large, elegant gaming resort opened by four entrepreneurial Border Barons (three Americans and one Mexican) in 1928. Diplomats, royalty, film stars, sports celebrities, politicians, patricians, and nouveau-riche capitalists flocked to Agua Caliente’s luxurious complex of casinos, hotels, cabarets, and sports extravaganzas, and to its world-renowned thoroughbred racetrack. Clark Gable, Jean Harlow, Louis B. Mayer, the Marx Brothers, Bing Crosby, Charlie Chaplin, Gloria Swanson, and the boxer Jack Dempsey were among the regular visitors. So were mobsters such as Bugsy Siegel, who later cited Agua Caliente as his inspiration for building the first such resort on what became the Las Vegas Strip. Less than a year after Agua Caliente opened, gangsters held up its money-car in transit to a bank in San Diego, killing the courier and a guard and stealing the company money pouch. Paul J. Vanderwood weaves the story of this heist gone wrong, the search for the killers, and their sensational trial into the overall history of the often-chaotic development of Agua Caliente, Tijuana, and Southern California. Drawing on newspaper accounts, police files, court records, personal memoirs, oral histories, and “true detective” magazines, he presents a fascinating portrait of vice and society in the Jazz Age, and he makes a significant contribution to the history of the U.S.-Mexico border.

Download or read book No Work and All Play written by Roger Wagner and published by Outskirts Press. This book was released on 2011-05-26 with total page 445 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The contents of the book describe the many examples of the types of characters and crazy daily episodes that an average person who selects a career in casino hotel management will witness and are part of during a lifetime in such a career. The book is really not about me, but it is a lifetime chronicle of my career where every work day is fun and there is almost never any drudgery. The three most interesting characters in the book are none other than a tycoon named Donald Trump, a Casino Icon named Jack Binion and a baseball legend named Mickey Mantle. The book also describes many other very interesting real-life persons in my career from Mob-connected people to other well known casino operators of their day. Most of these characters are not famous celebrities but their stories are sometimes even more humorous than those of Trump or Mantle. The stories about these people are real and actually happened, although the actual dates may be incorrect in some cases and some of the intricate details may be embellished to improve the stories. None of the tales degrade any of the characters in my book, but I do tell humorous stories about all of them that demonstrate they all have to put their pants on one leg at a time like the rest of us. It is not a text book, but it can serve as a good primer for a person considering making gaming hospitality their career objective. The seven different sections of the book are written to show how a person entering a casino hospitality position might evolve from the lowest level in a casino organization to a very high level of management, and that it generally takes many years to accomplish. It also describes the different relationships that one develops in any type of business and I use real people to illustrate how they each fit into the different types of relationships.

Download or read book Casino Life written by Phil Watts and published by Australian Academic Press. This book was released on 2018-10-31 with total page 107 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Walking through the doors of a casino can feel like entering a portal into another dimension. A cacophony of electronic and human sounds assaults the ears as you watch people transacting large amounts of money. But this is no ordinary purchasing of goods or services where you quietly wave a card or hand out notes from a purse. Instead, money is swapped for colourful plastic chips that are placed, pushed, and thrown onto gaming tables with seemingly reckless abandon by a wide array of people, young, old, cultured, relaxed, happy, and grim. Phil Watts, as an experienced forensic psychologist, knew a lot about human nature before he walked into his first casino at 40 years of age. He had treated clients with a wide range of difficulties including gambling, yet was still struck by the casino environment — an exciting world with its own culture, pace, rules, social etiquette, and shared expectations. This other world intrigued and surprised him. So, he wrote a book about it. Casino Life will be of interest to those who seeking to know more about casinos and their psychological effects, those who seek to find out why others gamble, and those who do gamble — not as a treatment, but as a window to see what you are doing and how that has an impact upon you. Along the way you will read about why people gamble, why gambling can become addictive and the treatments used to help problem gamblers, as well as the beliefs around gambling and some of the elaborate theories people use to explain why they try to defy mathematical odds. You will also learn about the fascinating cultural and behavioural patterns of everyday casino life.

Download or read book All the Devils Are Here written by Bethany McLean and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2011-08-30 with total page 503 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Hailed as "the best business book of 2010" (Huffington Post), this New York Times bestseller about the 2008 financial crisis brings the devastation of the Great Recession to life. As soon as the financial crisis erupted, the finger-pointing began. Should the blame fall on Wall Street, Main Street, or Pennsylvania Avenue? On greedy traders, misguided regulators, sleazy subprime companies, cowardly legislators, or clueless home buyers? According to Bethany McLean and Joe Nocera, two of America's most acclaimed business journalists, many devils helped bring hell to the economy. All the Devils Are Here goes back several decades to weave the hidden history of the financial crisis in a way no previous book has done. It explores the motivations of everyone from famous CEOs, cabinet secretaries, and politicians to anonymous lenders, borrowers, analysts, and Wall Street traders. It delves into the powerful American mythology of homeownership. And it proves that the crisis ultimately wasn't about finance at all; it was about human nature. Just as McLean's The Smartest Guys in the Room was hailed as the best Enron book on a crowded shelf, so will All the Devils Are Here be remembered for finally making sense of the financial meltdown and its consequences.

Download or read book The Liar s Ball written by Vicky Ward and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2014-10-27 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inside the world of the real Great Gatsby of New York real estate Harry Macklowe is one of the most notorious wheelers and dealers of the real estate world, and Liar's Ball is the story of the gamblers and thieves who populate his world. Watch as Harry makes the gutsy bid for midtown Manhattan's famous GM building and put almost no money down, landing the billion-dollar transaction that made him the poster child for New York's real estate royalty. Listen in on the secret conversations, back-door deals, and blackmail that put Macklowe and his cronies on top—and set them up for an enormous fall. Vanity Fair contributing editor Vicky Ward skillfully paints the often scandalous picture of the giants who owned the New York skyline until their empires came crumbling down in the 2008 financial crisis. Based on more than 200 interviews with real estate moguls like Donald Trump, William Zeckendorf, Mort Zuckerman, and David Simon, Liar's Ball is the never-before-told story of the egomaniacal elites of New York City. Read about: The epic rise and fall of one of the richest American real estate barons Outlandish greed and cravings for power, attention, and love Relationships built and destroyed by vanity and gossip The bursting of the real estate bubble and its aftermath This is no fiction—this is a real life tale of extravagance, ambition, and power. Harry Macklowe ruthlessly clawed his way to the top with the help of his loyal followers, each grubbing for a piece of the real estate pie. Liar's Ball reveals their secrets and tells the tale of business as usual for this group—lying, backstabbing, and moving in for the kill when things look patchy. From the bestselling author of The Devil's Casino comes an expos??? on the real estate elite that you'll hardly believe.

Download or read book The Devil s Punchbowl written by Greg Iles and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2009-07-07 with total page 740 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Penn Cage series comes an electrifying thriller that reveals a world of depravity, sex, violence, and the corruption of a Southern town. As a prosecuting attorney in Houston, Penn Cage sent hardened killers to death row. But it is as mayor of his hometown—Natchez, Mississippi—that Penn will face his most dangerous threat. Urged by old friends to try to restore this fading jewel of the Old South, Penn has ridden into office on a tide of support for change. But in its quest for new jobs and fresh money, Natchez, like other Mississippi towns, has turned to casino gambling, and now five fantastical steamboats float on the river beside the old slave market at Natchez like props from Gone With the Wind. But one boat isn't like the others. Rumor has it that the Magnolia Queen has found a way to pull the big players from Las Vegas to its Mississippi backwater. And with them—on sleek private jets that slip in and out of town like whispers in the night—come pro football players, rap stars, and international gamblers, all sharing an unquenchable taste for one thing: blood sport—and the dark vices that go with it. When a childhood friend of Penn's who brings him evidence of these crimes is brutally murdered, the full weight of Penn's failure to protect his city hits home. So begins his quest to find the men responsible. But it's a hunt he begins alone, for the local authorities have been corrupted by the money and power of his hidden enemy. With his family's lives at stake, Penn realizes his only allies in his one-man war are those bound to him by blood or honor: -Caitlin Masters, the lover Penn found in The Quiet Can Game and lost in Turning Angel -Danny McDavitt, the heroic helicopter pilot from Third Degree -Tom Cage, Penn's father and legendary local family physician -Walt Garrity, a retired Texas Ranger who served with Penn's father during the Korean War Together they must defeat a sophisticated killer who has an almost preternatural ability to anticipate—and counter—their every move. Ultimately, victory will depend on a bold stroke that will leave one of Penn's allies dead—and Natchez changed forever. After appearing in two of Iles's most popular novels, Penn Cage makes his triumphant return as a brilliant, honorable, and courageous hero. Rich with Southern atmosphere and marked by one jaw-dropping plot turn after another, The Devil's Punchbowl confirms that Greg Iles is America's master of suspense.

Download or read book Casino Moscow written by Matthew Brzezinski and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2002-07-09 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: After awakening from its long communist slumber, Russia in the 1990s was a place where everything and everyone was for sale, and fortunes could be made and lost overnight. Into this free-market maelstrom stepped rookie Wall Street Journal reporter Matthew Brzezinski, who was immediately pulled into the mad world of Russian capitalism -- where corrupt bankers and fast-talking American carpetbaggers presided over the biggest boom and bust in financial history. Brzezinski's adventures take him from the solid-gold bathroom fixtures of Moscow's elite, to the last stop on the Trans-Siberian railway, where poverty-stricken citizens must buy water by the pail from the local crime lord, and back to civilization, to stumble into a drunken birthday bash for an ultra-nationalist politico. It's an irreverent, lurid, and hilarious account of one man's tumultuous trek through a capitalist market gone haywire -- and a nation whose uncertain future is marked by boundless hope and foreboding despair.

Download or read book The Devil Himself written by Eric Dezenhall and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2011-07-19 with total page 304 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "I'll talk to anybody, a priest, a bank manager, a gangster, the devil himself, if I can get the information I need. This is a war." -- Lt. Commander Charles Radcliffe Haffenden, Naval Intelligence Unit, B-3 In late 1982, a spike in terrorism has the Reagan Administration considering covert action to neutralize the menace before it reaches the United States. There are big risks to waging a secret war against America's enemies---but there is one little-known precedent. Forty years earlier, German U-boats had been prowling the Atlantic, sinking hundreds of U.S. ships along the east coast, including the largest cruise ship in the world, Normandie, destroyed at a Manhattan pier after Pearl Harbor. Nazi agents even landed on Long Island with explosives and maps of railways, bridges, and defense plants. Desperate to secure the coast, the Navy turned to Meyer Lansky, the Jewish Mob boss. A newly naturalized American whose fellow Eastern European Jews were being annihilated by Hitler, Lansky headed an unlikely fellowship of mobsters Lucky Luciano, Bugsy Siegel, Frank Costello, and naval intelligence officers. Young Reagan White House aide Jonah Eastman, grandson of Atlantic City gangster Mickey Price, is approached by the president's top advisor with an assignment: Discreetly interview his grandfather's old friend Lansky about his wartime activities. There just might be something to learn from that secret operation. The notoriously tight-lipped gangster, dying of cancer, is finally ready to talk. Jonah gets a riveting---and darkly comic---history lesson. The Mob caught Nazi agents, planted propaganda with the help of columnist Walter Winchell, and found Mafia spies to plot the invasion of Sicily, where General Patton was poised to strike at the soft underbelly of the Axis. Lansky's men stopped at nothing to sabotage Hitler's push toward American shores. Based on real events, The Devil Himself is a high-energy novel of military espionage and Mafia justice.

Download or read book Greed and Glory on Wall Street written by Ken Auletta and published by Open Road Media. This book was released on 2015-09-29 with total page 314 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The inside account of a financial meltdown that reshaped Wall Street In 1983, Lew Glucksman, then co-CEO of the heralded investment bank Lehman Brothers, demanded the resignation of chairman Pete Peterson, with whom he had long argued over how to manage the company. Shockingly, Peterson, who had taken charge a decade earlier and led Lehman from near collapse to record profits, agreed to step down. In this meticulously researched volume, Ken Auletta details the turmoil, infighting, and power struggles that brought about Peterson’s departure and the eventual sale of one of Wall Street’s oldest and most prestigious firms. Set against the backdrop of the 1980s stock exchange, where hotshot young traders made and lost millions in a single afternoon, the story of Lehman’s fall is a suspenseful battle of wills between bankers, traders, and executives motivated by greed, envy, and ego. Auletta, who conducted hundreds of hours of interviews and was granted access to private company records, has crafted a thorough, enduring, and engaging account of pivotal events that continued to influence this storied financial institution until its ultimate demise in 2008.

Download or read book The Devil s Derivatives written by Nicholas Dunbar and published by Harvard Business Press. This book was released on 2011-07-12 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A compelling narrative on what went wrong with our financial system—and who’s to blame. From an award-winning journalist who has been covering the industry for more than a decade, The Devil’s Derivatives charts the untold story of modern financial innovation—how investment banks invented new financial products, how investors across the world were wooed into buying them, how regulators were seduced by the political rewards of easy credit, and how speculators made a killing from the near-meltdown of the financial system. Author Nicholas Dunbar demystifies the revolution that briefly gave finance the same intellectual respectability as theoretical physics. He explains how bankers worldwide created a secret trillion-dollar machine that delivered cheap mortgages to the masses and riches beyond dreams to the financial innovators. Fundamental to this saga is how “the people who hated to lose” were persuaded to accept risk by “the people who loved to win.” Why did people come to trust and respect arcane financial tools? Who were the bankers competing to assemble the basic components into increasingly intricate machines? How did this process achieve its own unstoppable momentum—ending in collapse, bailouts, and a public outcry against the giants of finance? Provocative and intriguing, The Devil’s Derivatives sheds much-needed light on the forces that fueled the most brutal economic downturn since the Great Depression.

Download or read book Kushner Inc written by Vicky Ward and published by St. Martin's Press. This book was released on 2019-03-19 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER The first explosive book about Javanka and their infamous rise to power Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump are the self-styled Prince and Princess of America. Their swift, gilded rise to extraordinary power in Donald Trump’s White House is unprecedented and dangerous. In Kushner, Inc., investigative journalist Vicky Ward digs beneath the myth the couple has created, depicting themselves as the voices of reason in an otherwise crazy presidency, and reveals that Jared and Ivanka are not just the President’s chief enablers: they, like him, appear disdainful of rules, of laws, and of ethics. They are entitled inheritors of the worst kind; their combination of ignorance, arrogance, and an insatiable lust for power has caused havoc all over the world, and may threaten the democracy of the United States. Ward follows their trajectory from New Jersey and New York City to the White House, where the couple’s many forays into policy-making and national security have mocked long-standing U.S. policy and protocol. They have pursued an agenda that could increase their wealth while their actions have mostly gone unchecked. In Kushner, Inc., Ward holds Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump accountable: she unveils the couple’s self-serving transactional motivations and how those have propelled them into the highest levels of the US government where no one, the President included, has been able to stop them.

Download or read book Summary of Vicky Ward s The Devil s Casino written by Everest Media, and published by Everest Media LLC. This book was released on 2022-05-25T22:59:00Z with total page 44 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 On June 7, 2008, George Herbert Walker, a 39-year-old second cousin of then President George W. Bush, and head of Lehman's Investment Management division, was celebrating his marriage to Nancy Dorn, a 31-year-old hedge fund analyst from Texas. The couple had exchanged their vows at New York's City Hall a few weeks earlier. #2 The party was held to celebrate the wedding of George Walker and Nancy Dorn. It was clear that most of the executives at the party were stressed about the company's financial situation. #3 Lehman was founded in 1850 by three cotton trader brothers. The firm expanded after World War II, and under the reign of Bobbie Lehman, who had a Rolodex bursting with names like Whitney, Harriman, and most of the rest of New York's ruling class, it became the gentleman's banking house. #4 After Lehman, the reputation of the firm was still intact. The partners were all rich. In 2007, Fuld was named CEO of the Year by Institutional Investor magazine in the Brokers and Asset Managers category.

Download or read book Greetings From South Jersey Casino Boy written by Chuck Turner and published by Independently Published. This book was released on 2020-07-29 with total page 325 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Ted Damian is a fun-loving kid growing up fast -way too fast, in a family filled with secrets. He experiences life threatening moments which transform him, leading him to a life as a Casino dealer who lives a fast life of sex, drugs, crime and even more secrets -deadly ones. Life's a dangerous game -he's all in.

Download or read book Blood Casino written by Nina Walker and published by . This book was released on 2021-01-28 with total page 324 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Keep your cards close and your enemies closer. At least that's what my mom always told me. Becoming a vampire hunter was never in my cards, but it is now that she needs my help. A decade ago vampires seized control of the bars, casinos, and the dark underbelly of society. Now they deal in addiction and bargain with blood, and humans over twenty-five can't fight back against their compulsion. It's made my mother vulnerable--the only family I have left. To save her, I'm forced to make a deal with the devil--one who lives above a casino, wears a crown, and wants to drink my blood. Andrianos Teresi may be dangerous and alluring but I've got a stake hidden up my sleeve. I'll go all in and play his game, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. What I don't expect? The heart that needs guarding is my own.

Download or read book The Devil s Casino Code written by Arthur Conrad and published by . This book was released on 2019-09-21 with total page 146 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The casino always wins", surely the BIGGEST LIE in gambling.This book is the cheat sheet of the modern gambler, teaching both simple and intricate systems to beat the casino. You will learn how casinos continuously cheat their players with a delicate set of traps for the gambler to get caught in, and how YOU can cheat THEM!!! No more gambling based on chance, but based on mathematics, loopholes and profits!This book puts together the most effective systems and strategies for the three best-known games, Slot-machines, Roulette and Blackjack, in order for YOU to finally beat the house. Find the patterns that casinos are based on, discover the solutions to increase your odds more than the casinos want you to, learn what they hope you DON'T!!! Systems built around the mistakes casinos have made in the past and keep making in the present, found everywhere, from the games to the casino's structure itself, little details that only a small percentage of gamblers know about, and even fewer have discovered the way to exploit them, mistakes that allow the intelligent player to gain and edge over the house.Brought to you by The Devil's Casino Code, the most functional book on modern gambling.After reading this book you will never enter a casino the same way, because YOU will know what others won't, what the managers don't want you to, because YOU will no longer be an average player, using strategies that actually help the casino take money, instead your footsteps will echo with profesionalism, as a modern gambler.

Download or read book The Devil s Casino Gambling Guide written by Arthur Conrad and published by . This book was released on 2020-01-29 with total page 238 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's time to beat the casino!After years of research, Arthur Conrad and the Devil's Gambling Team have finally put together the universal casino gambling book that will help you turn the edge on the casino! Bringing you the most accurate information, gathered from former casino owners, employees and game tabel and machine developers, to reveal the secrets behind the most popular and advantageous games to play on the casino floor!By dissecting the odds behind every possible bet, the team was able to conclude which are the best, worse and downright outrageous decisions gamblers can make while playing, with all of this data backed up by complex mathematics and statistics, to ensure the information is fool-proof!Covering topics such as: Casino infrastructurePlayer etiquette Probabilities Casino scamsCredit management Gambling TipsBest games to playand many more...Do not put your faith in luck alone, but instead use the solid evidence and information that only a few could previously get access to!!!Get ready to cheat the casino where THEY used to cheat YOU, and beat them at their own game, never letting them profit off you anymore!With this complete guide to modern casino gambling, you will be able to look past the flashing lights and see what you are not supposed to...