Inside Vladimir Putin?s Private and Secret Casino.

JUST
HOW DO Casinos Make Money?

Vladimir Putin is seemingly a staunch opponent of gambling. The Russian President heads a
government that outlawed online gambling in 2006. He also oversaw the banning of most
gambling beyond four designated zones in 2009 2009 (five now).

Therefore, it might seem that Putin would avoid any kind of gaming in his personal life. New
revelations, however, indicate that he has a secret casino in his �1 billion ($1.4b) palace.

I?m going to discuss more with this private casino. First, though, I?ll cover how the details on
this secret, and likely illegal, gambling establishment got out.

Alexei Navalny Exposes Putin?s Black Sea Palace

Vladimir Putin has stayed in power since 1999. He initially served as Russia?s president from
1999 to 2008.

He then acted because the prime minister from 2008 to 2012. Then, Putin assumed the
presidency role again in 2012?a title he still holds today.

He now has some competition, though, in opposition leader Alexei Navalny. A lawyer and
anti-corruption activist, Navalny has exposed what he believes are corrupt policies by Putin.

He took to his YouTube channel, which has 6 million subscribers, to go over the little-known
palace. The 44-year-old gets into this aspect round the 39:00 minute mark.

Lap Dances, Ice Skating, Casino Games & More

Built near Gelendzhik, Russia on the Black Sea coast, Vladimir Putin?s private mansion is a
sight to behold. Estimated to be 39 times the size of Monaco, the estate covers a vast
section of Russian wilderness. The house, meanwhile, measures a whopping 17,700 square
meters.

As Navalny noted, ?This property isn?t a country house, not just a cottage, not a residence.
It?s a whole city, or rather a kingdom.?

A number of the notable elements of the lavish vacation home include:

Arcade that also features slots

Bar
Casino with table games
Church
Helicopter landing pad
Ice staking rink/hockey arena
Private beach (w/ underground tunnel resulting in it)
Spa
Strip club
Tea house
Theater
Tropical garden
Given that this is Putin?s retreat, the estate includes a no-fly zone and many checkpoints.
Anybody who enters the vast property will need to have special clearance.

Navalny claims that the palace has been covered entirely with money funneled from the
Russian people. The estate is believed to be worth �1 billion.

More Details on the Casino

Lots of the amenities mentioned above are interesting. Navalny was especially intrigued by
the strip club. He poked fun of it by saying, ?The palace appears to have a striptease bar for
Vlad to take pleasure from pole dancing.?

The part that I?m most interested in, though, is definitely the casino. Housed in a posh room
which could give Casino de Monte Carlo a run because of its money, this gaming room is
fairly impressive.

Judging from pictures, the private casino includes a roulette wheel and multiple tables for
cards. This gambling establishment would match any elite London or NEVADA casino.

The arcade, which is separate from the dedicated casino area, features some slots. A row of
slots?some of which look like variations of IGT?s Buffalo?line among the walls. Visitors can
move from PAC-MAN to a slot machine in just several steps.

Collecting vintage slots isn?t uncommon, especially among extremely wealthy people like
Putin. These slots, however, look fairly modern.

Is Putin?s Casino Illegal by Russian Law?

Russia features a number of the world?s strictest gambling laws. As covered earlier, it
banned internet gambling in 2006 and followed this up with restrictive land-based gambling
laws in '09 2009.

Regarding the latter legislation, politicians originally permits four designated casino zones.
These zones include Altai Krai, Kaliningrad Oblast, Krasnodar Krai, and Primorsky Krai.
Recently, a fifth casino area was approved for Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014.

Any gambling occurring beyond these approved zones is supposed to be illegal. No

exception is perfect for Gelendzhik.

Therefore, Putin?s secret casino could very well be operating illegal. The question is, though,
if it accepts real-money bets.

Perhaps the casino could easily get by on the premise that it only offers free gaming. Maybe
visitors receive chips and tokens for the slots without actually risking anything of value.

Even in this case, though, it appears as if Russia would outlaw the private ownership of
modern slots, roulette wheels, and table games. Most American states have softer gambling
laws than in Russia, yet don?t let private citizens own just any little bit of gaming equipment.

My position is that Vladimir Putin?s casino is probable illegal no matter if it can or doesn?t
take real-money wagers. But again, it could possibly pass the test if it only offers free
gaming.

Navalny Not Doing So Good Lately

Opposing Russia?s firmly entrenched and powerful leader doesn?t come without hazards.
Alexei Navalny has gone through some major struggles recently.

In August 2020, he was rushed to a healthcare facility after being poisoned with the Novichok
nerve agent. He was taken up to Berlin for a medical emergency immediately afterward and
discharged one month later.

Vladimir Putin

And in addition, Navalny blamed Putin and his allies for the nerve agent attack. The Kremlin
vehemently denies the allegations.

He was recently imprisoned for parole violations stemming from the 2014 conviction. He
failed to are accountable to the Federal Prison Service while sick from the Novichok nerve
agent.

After receiving a suspended sentence, Navalny was presented with two and a half years in
Vladimir Oblast prison. Human rights activists have accused the prison staff of torturing
Navalny, whose health has deteriorated since going behind bars. Specifically, prison guards
have allegedly forced the opposition leader into sleep deprivation.

How Can Putin Afford an Estate 39 Times how big is Monaco?

Estimates vary wildly on how much Vladimir Putin will probably be worth. One CEO believes
that the president will probably be worth $200 million, while CelebrityNetWorth has him at
$70 billion.

Assuming we take the middle value, $135 billion, Vladimir would be the world?s fifth richest
man behind Jeff Bezos ($195 billion), Bernard Arnault ($179b), Elon Musk ($175b), and Bill
Gates ($132b).
Forbes, meanwhile, simply refers to Putin as the world?s ?most effective person? without
estimating just how much he?s worth.

In any case, it?s safe to say that Vladimir can afford to create the previously described
palace without going broke. Again, the estate is worth approximately $1.4 billion.

How this property was paid for remains a mystery. Navalny suggests that corrupt money
funded what may be the world?s most-lavish palace.

Will Anything BE ACHIEVED Concerning the Private Casino?

As I discussed earlier, Vladimir Putin?s casino may not be above board. In the end, Russia is
quite strict regarding its laws on gambling.

It technically doesn?t even allow online gambling and takes strong measures to bar it. The
federal government has blacklisted many websites that revolve around casino games, poker,
and sports betting.

These censorship efforts aren?t entirely bulletproof, that allows Russians to gamble at some
offshore sites. However, they do cut down on the amount of illegal gambling.

I highly doubt that anything will undoubtedly be done about Putin?s private gambling
establishment. As Forbes? most powerful designation hints at, the 68-year-old holds
immense power in Russia and beyond.

No authority figure will risk their reputation and career to crack down on the Black Sea palace
casino. Furthermore, Putin may be able to look for a loophole in the laws, such as if the
casino doesn?t take real-money bets.

Conclusion
Vladimir Putin is known first and foremost because the long-running president of Russia.
Now, he?ll also be known as mostly of the people with a private casino.

Spanning 17,700 sq. meters, Putin?s Black Sea mansion boasts a large gaming room with
several tables. The arcade also includes a few slot machines.

Gambling isn?t the only interesting thing that this estate provides. It includes a church,
hockey arena, spa, strip club, and theater too.

Whether this impressive palace was built on legitimate money remains to be observed.
Nevertheless, it?s quite a spectacle and features pretty much everything a guy could imagine
having in his home.Everyone knows that casinos make crazy amounts of money. Most
people don?t understand exactly how and why casinos earn money, though.

When I was younger and knew nothing about casinos, I thought all of the games were
mathematically fair and that folks just lost their money since they didn?t bring enough money
to the casino to withstand the vagaries of luck.

I also thought they made additional money from rooms, meals, and entertainment than they
do.

As it works out, casinos offer games that are completely random and still make the majority
of their profits from these games.

In this article, I explain in detail how casinos earn money.

The Effect of Having a Practically Infinite Bankroll

One way that casinos earn money is by having the capacity to afford more bets than players.
Relative to the majority of the gamblers in the casino, the casino has a bankroll that might
aswell be infinite. Some high rollers are the exception, but they?re beyond the scope of this
section of the post.

Most people underestimate the likelihood of having a large losing streak even when you?re
playing a casino game where the itâs likely that fair. In the event that you only have a dollar,
and you bet a dollar each time you guess the proper outcome on the flip of a coin, you?ll
almost surely go broke betting against someone who has a $100 bankroll.

But this isn?t the only method casinos make money.

In fact, should they relied with this, they?d probably break even eventually because the
nature of the casino would be to deal with a large enough number of bets that regulations of
GOOD SIZED QUANTITIES gets involved.

The Law of GOOD SIZED QUANTITIES just indicates that whenever you?re coping with
something random. The more events you have, the closer you get to the mathematically
predicted outcomes.

For example, red and black and roulette seem like they?re equally likely, plus they are.

Nevertheless, you wouldn?t raise an eyebrow at the ball landing on red twice in a row. It
happens all the time.

If the ball landed on red 100 times in a row, you?d be surprised, though. You?d even be
surprised if the ball landed on red 90 times in 100 spins.

Then There?s the House Edge

The other factor which makes the casino money is the house edge. That is some fancy math,
but it?s nothing it is possible to?t handle assuming you have a basic grasp of normal
arithmetic?addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
The house edge is a long-term average that describes how much you?ll lose on a bet. It?s
based on the difference between the possibility of winning and the payout odds for the bet.

I mentioned roulette in the last bullet point and the method that you were equally likely to get
red or black. That is true as you have the same amount of red numbers (18) as you do black
numbers (also 18).

But you do NOT have a 50% chance of winning this bet, and that?s because you can find
two more numbers on the wheel. They?re colored green.

Roulette

So, the probability of winning a bet on red is 18/38; you have 38 possible outcomes, and 18
of them involve you winning. The other 20 outcomes are losing outcomes ? black or green.

In the event that you made 38 bets and got all 38 results, you?d lose 20 units and win 18
units for a net loss of two units.

Average those two units over 38 bets, and that?s 1/19, or 0.052631579.

We convert that to a percentage to make it better to understand, and we don?t carry all those
numbers past the decimal point, either. So, the house edge when you?re playing roulette is
5.26%.

WHAT GOES ON in the Short Run Doesn?t Matter to the Casino

If you?ve spent more than one gambling session at the roulette wheel, you know that it?s
impossible to lose 5.26% of an individual even-money bet. You either win or lose the total
amount that without a doubt. That?s an extreme exemplory case of a short-term result.

Even though you do two bets in a row, it?s impossible to lose an average of 5.26% of every
bet. The only possible outcomes are these:

You win the first bet and lose the second bet.
You lose the initial bet and win the next bet.
You win both bets.
You lose both bets.
In the cases of #1 and #2, you break even. In the case of #3, you win two units. And in the
case of #4, you lose two units.

This would look like a break-even situation, too, nonetheless it?s not for just one simple
reason:

The probabilities of each of these outcomes is different. The probability of winning both bets
is 22.44%. The probability of losing both bets is 27.70%. Combined, that probability is 50.1%.
The probability of losing a bet AND winning a bet, then, is 49.9%.

Which means that the fewer bets you make, the likelier you're to see results apart from the
mathematically predicted results. In order to win at roulette, the goal is to do a hit and run.
You create a handful of bets and quit once you get ahead by way of a few units.

The casino, though, is coping with two to four roulette tables with between one and seven
players at all of them at any given time. The average casino spins the wheel 40 times each
hour.

So, just how many bets is the casino making?

3 tables x 4 players x 40 bets per hour is 480 bets each hour. And since the casino is open
24 hours a day, you?re looking at the casino averaging 11,000 to 12,000 bets per day.

Even a small casino with only 1 roulette table is most likely seeing 3,000 to 5,000 bets per
day. Over the course of a month, that?s a wide array of roulette bets.

Guess what happens when you?re dealing with that many events?

The specific outcome starts to check nearly the same as the predicted outcome, which
means that the casino expects to win typically 5.26% of the action on their roulette tables.

The numbers work differently on other games, however the principle may be the same. The
casino games pay out at lower odds than the odds of winning.

WHAT'S ?The Handle? That Casino Personnel Mention?

The handle is among the most important things that a casino manager looks at.

It?s just the quantity of action, or money bet, during a specific time period.

Any bet at any table game contributes to the handle whether or not the bets win or lose. It
also doesn?t matter if the bets are made using chips or cash. And it doesn?t matter what the
payout odds are for the bets. If the money gets bet, it?s counted within the casino?s handle.

Casino Gambling

This is NOT a similar thing as ?the drop,? that is another term you?ll hear casino
management bandying about. The drop is the amount of money that the casino gets in trade
for chips.

If you sit down to play at a blackjack table and buy $100 worth of chips, the $100 in cash gets
?dropped? into a metal box by the dealer. That?s where in fact the name originates from.
You?ll see some people use the terms drop and handle interchangeably, however they are
not the same thing.

What Is the Hold Percentage?

The house edge is really a theoretical number. It?s a mathematical prediction based on the
probability of winning and the payout odds.

The hold percentage, however, can be an actual number. It?s the money that the casino wins
when compared to drop, never to the handle.

For instance, if the casino has $10,000 in the drop at the roulette table by the end of 24
hours, the hold percentage may be the amount of winnings they have on that, usually about
20% regarding roulette. It wouldn?t be unusual for the casino to win $2,000 on $10,000
because casino players will continue steadily to put money into action repeatedly.

The house edge applies to how much the action or the handle. The hold percentage pertains
to the amount of the money taken in or the drop.

What Is Time on Device and just why Does It Matter?

You?d think that ?time on device? only applies to the gambling machines, but in fact, it
applies to the games being played. The bigger the time on device is, the more income the
casino wins from the ball player regardless of any factors.

However the average bet sizes also create a big difference. It is possible to predict the
money a game can make for the casino by averaging the quantity of bets made at that game
by the average size of this bet. You multiply that by the home edge, and you also have the
predicted profit for that game.

So a casino makes additional money at a game played for the same stakes when the player
makes more bets each hour or once the player plays longer.

A casino can increase those profits further by raising how big is their minimum bets. Because
of this , games with a minimal house edge, like blackjack or craps, frequently have an
increased minimum bet than $5. On the Strip in NEVADA, for example, some casinos don?t
even offer table games for under $10 per bet.

How Do Casinos Make Money from Poker?

Savvy readers might understand that in a game of real cash poker hosted by a casino, the
players are playing against one another, not against the casino. If another player at the
overall game pays off my bet or wins my money, the casino doesn?t win that.

To create poker profitable, the casinos take a percentage of each pot before awarding it to
the winning player. Normally, this is 5%, and, generally in most games, it offers a clause that
if there?s no flop, there?s no drop. In other words, the casino only takes this percentage
when a hand goes past a particular point.
This amount that the casino takes from every pot is named ?the rake,? and the rake is how
the casino makes money from poker.

Conclusion
So how exactly does the casino earn money?

It?s not by cheating or using games which are rigged. The casinos earn money by offering
bets where the payouts aren?t proportional to the odds of winning.

It?s that simple.

You can think of the house edge as a tax on your action that only averages out on the long
haul. For the casino, the long run happens every day.

But also for the players, the long run only happens during the period of weeks, months, or
years.