Government Addiction to Gambling Revenues

Woman, who says she embezzled to pay for gambling, must pay $500K in restitution

 by Kyle Schwab  Published: May 9, 2016

An admitted problem gambler who paid for her addiction by embezzling funds belonging to the city of Oklahoma City was ordered Monday to pay nearly $500,000 in restitution. 

"The addiction was strong," Renne M. Magerus told an Oklahoma City federal judge during the sentencing. 

"What were you thinking?" U.S. District Judge David L. Russell asked her at one point.

"I wasn't thinking," Magerus replied, "(I was) covering up my gambling addiction."

Prosecutors alleged that while Magerus was employed as an accounting manager for Republic Parking System she embezzled nearly $420,000.

Republic Parking System manages downtown parking garages and lots for the Central Oklahoma Transportation and Parking Authority. The city of Oklahoma City created the authority, or COTPA, in 1966.

Part of Magerus' responsibilities included handling and verifying cash and credit card receipts collected on a daily basis at each parking facility managed by Republic Parking System. 

“Magerus embezzled funds by holding back envelopes containing cash from the various parking facilities, then deleting the corresponding cash receipts from the COTPA daily revenue reports and, finally, emailing the falsified reports to COTPA,” prosecutors alleged. 

The embezzlement began in April 2012 and continued through November 2014, prosecutors said. Republic Parking System hired Magerus in 2000 as a bookkeeper and later promoted her to accounting manager. 

Magerus, of Moore, pleaded guilty in November to wire fraud and tax fraud. She was 36 years old at the time, she wrote in her plea paperwork. 

“I just want to take responsibility and move forward,” she also wrote. “I executed a scheme to defraud COTPA by emailing a daily revenue report that I had falsified.”

She also admitted to filing a falsified tax return in April 2013. Prosecutors alleged Magerus didn't report $80,570 of additional income received in 2012. 

Punishment

“There's nothing sympathetic about what you did. ... It was wrong,” the judge said before revealing his punishment. “You wreaked havoc on a lot of people.”

The judge ordered Magerus to pay $497,887 in restitution, spend 60 months on probation and serve 216 days in jail on weekends. The judge divided the nearly half million dollars in restitution between three entities.

Twin City Fire Insurance Co. is to receive $369,616 of the restitution. Documents show the insurance company reimbursed that amount to Republic Parking System “to cover all of the embezzled funds except for the victim's $50,000 deductible.” 

Republic Parking System is to receive $99,410. The IRS is to receive $28,861. 

Apology

Magerus apologized Monday for her actions. 

“I would like to make an apology to the court and all parties involved,” she told the judge.

She also apologized to her family. “I know they were shocked, upset and angry,” she said. 

Magerus told the judge she would gamble on her lunch breaks and sometimes on the weekends.

She said she would either tell her family that she won or only spent $40. 

Magerus' attorney told the judge that her gambling addiction “took her down a dark path,” but she is getting treatment. At the time Magerus pleaded guilty, she reported she was working for a publishing company.

Magerus and her attorney declined to comment after the sentencing. 

http://newsok.com/article/5497093

A look at the most gambling-addicted states

By Nancy Marshall-Genzer

May 09, 2016

The states with the most gambling addicts all have casinos, according to WalletHub. - thomashawk/Flickr

The Kentucky Derby just happened this past weekend. It was a big event for horse lovers, of course. But also for gamblers.

Which brings us to a new study from the personal finance website WalletHub that looks at which states have the most addicted gamblers and why. 

People bet on horse races, of course. But in many cases, racetracks are connected to casinos.

In fact, WalletHub said the states with the most gambling addicts all have casinos. Nevada tops the list, followed by:

“South Dakota, Mississippi, Montana and Oklahoma,” said  Jill Gonzalez, an analyst for WalletHub.  

WalletHub

Click the above image to get a by-the-numbers look at the Kentucky Derby.

According to Gonzalez, the states with the most addicted gamblers have two things in common:

“How close you live to a casino, and what are the rules in your state?” she said.

For example, does your state have a lottery?

Click your state below to see where it ranks among WalletHub's 2016 list of the most gambling-addicted states:

CLICK ON LINK

But gambling addiction is hard to measure, especially since millennials don’t like casinos.

“They certainly don’t want to sit there and play in front of slot machines. That doesn’t do anything for them,” said Richard McGowan, a professor of statistics, economics and business policy at Boston College.

But casinos are reaching out to millennials with new machines that let them play against each other.

Follow Nancy Marshall-Genzer at @MarshallGenzer. 

http://www.marketplace.org/2016/04/29/world/most-gambling-addicted-states

This State Has the Worst Gambling Addiction

• Ethan Wolff-Mann 
 

May 9, 2016

And here's how the other 49 rank.

Whenever legalizing gambling is discussed, it becomes a seriously contentious issue, for obvious reasons—fun and games can quickly spiral out of control into addiction. Gambling may not be legal in many states, but its addiction is a fairly sizable and expensive problem that affects over 2% of the population and had a total social cost of $7 billion in 2013, according to the National Council on Problem Gambling.

According to a recent WalletHub analysis — which compared 13 metrics that compared “gambling friendliness” with “gambling problem and treatment” — Nevada, home to Las Vegas, was in fact the worst state in the union for gambling addiction. It was the second most gambling-friendly place and ranked number 12 for gambling problems.


http://time.com/money/4322783/gambling-addiction-worst-states/