How would you dispose of $3.5 million in poker chips?

[sagesnow]

According to the New York Times article about Fred and Donnie's criminal tax evasion scheme, Fred bought $3.5 million worth of poker chips from Donald's Casino, then never cashed them in. Wouldn't that be a heck of a lot of poker chips to drop in a dumpster or in the bay? Or perhaps there are there some poker chips worth a million dollars each?

From the Times:
"That was what happened at Trump’s Castle casino, where an $18.4 million bond payment was due in December 1990. Fred Trump dispatched a trusted bookkeeper to Atlantic City with checks to buy $3.5 million in casino chips without placing a bet. With this ruse — an illegal loan under New Jersey gaming laws, resulting in a $65,000 civil penalty — Donald Trump narrowly avoided defaulting on his bonds."

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/02/us/politics/donald-trump-wealth-fred-trump.html

[BumRushDaShow]

1. According to Rachel, each chip was $5,000

And the original tranche was $3.35 million so that would be 670 chips (so probably a sackful), and later Fred wrote out a check for $150K for additional (30 chips) to make up the difference to reach the $3.5 million needed to make the payment.

Link to tweet

TEXT
MSNBC
✔
@MSNBC

WATCH: @maddow uses poker chips to breakdown a 40-page New York Times investigative report into President Trump's finances that at one point alleged "outright fraud."

-----> https://on.msnbc.com/2NYIIoI
1:30 AM - Oct 3, 2018

She had said her SO had commissioned a set of commemorative poker chips to celebrate her show's 10 year anniversary so those were used to make the point of that segment.

[sagesnow]

5. I will have to watch that in full.

I don't often have the patience to watch Rachel's drawn out stories, insightful and deep as they are. I have to watch her on double speed. Wish there was a Cliff's notes to Rachels show. Guess that's what DU ends up being.

[BumRushDaShow]

7. Well she had her own 10-year aniversary "poker chips" for props for that segment.

[Dave Starsky]

9. There used to be a famous radio host named Paul Harvey.

He had a segment called "The Rest of the Story" that came on every weekday on your friendly neighborhood AM station. His show was hugely popular for decades.

For 15 minutes (which is an eternity in radio), he would weave an elaborate, though thoroughly compelling, tale about someone with a terrible struggle they had to deal with. He went into a lot of detail about all of the various challenges they had to face and how they surmounted those challenges. At the very end of his segment, he told you the identity of the famous person he had been talking about the whole time.

Rachel Maddow has a point to make. And she makes it. But she knows that it takes a compelling backstory to get there. And she delivers that.

[haele]

10. Hmm. we use poker chips in a jar to count "stars" for our granddaughter she can cash later...

Stars from school for doing exceptional work, one each time she completes homework and chores, etc...she learns to save for her fun spending, too. We have a list. 5 chips gets her a trip to the British store for a "Harry Potter's Chocolate Frog" (damn things are $2.50 apiece!). 10 chips gets her one hour uninterrupted of screen time watching her favorite videos or a picnic afternoon (3 hours) at one of the really nice city parks with the huge climbing features, flying foxes, and slides - whether Grandy and Gramma feel up to it or not. 30 chips will get her a day at the local pizza parlor/goofy golf/arcade.

She's seven. So we use poker chips as a teaching tool on earning and saving, about thinking about assessing value and importance of things that you want, instead of just expecting to be given anything you want when you want it, or going for over-priced cheap glitzy crap instead of saving for something that lasts.
670 poker chips, if she ever saved up that many, would probably get her a day trip to Disneyland with one friend - and she'd probably get that if she saved every single "star" she got for a year.

Now, Donny's Daddy used poker chips to bail out his spoiled brat of a son so he can turn around and waste more of Daddy's Money on stupid flashy crap. Some learning tool.

The rich are f'ng different.

Haele

[BumRushDaShow]

11. That's a cute idea!

And since they are plastic and re-usable, you can keep cycling them and don't have the issue of different sized real coins (which would be a different type of "lesson" ).

Kids learn young that "more" is better than "less" and there tends to be that natural instinct to almost "hoard" what you have when someone else is willing to "give" to you. Establishing that you need to "give" to "get" needs to be taught early in life.

This is what often happens to the wealthy - wherever they go, they get "freebies" just for "being there". I think of those award show famous "gift bags" that are filled with expensive products that are "given to" celebrities who are attending -mostly as a promo for the company donating the "goodie" in the bag. But it's still a freebie for the attendee.

[Kurt V.]

2. this was also covered in Netflix Dirty Money series.

Confidence Man episode.

[sagesnow]

3. Thanks

I'll look for that series.

[Jersey Devil]

4. This story was reported in the news years ago

I would bet that almost everyone who has ever been to Atlantic City has heard it. And it made no difference the first time. So what is different now?

[sagesnow]

6. Good question.

It seems to take years to for these stories to seep into the Heartland. And the full impact of them does not appear to be felt until the perpetrator is elected POTUS.

[Jim Lane]

12. I think what's different now is the cumulative impact.

It's not just a one-off shady transaction, but part of a years-long pattern of fraud by the Trump family.

As you say, people had heard the story of the poker chips. As one of those people, I can say that I had not heard about most of the stuff reported in the recent Times story.

[TheBlackAdder]

8. I'm sure that right before Trump's casino failed, he cashed in those chips to get money out of it.