Originally Posted by Bob21 View Post
Mission, most of my comments are speculation too. I felt the writer did a sloppy job writing this article. He could have done more investigative journalism to confirm or refute some of Nestor’s stories. For example, he could have easily gone to the court records to see if Nestor’s friend gave the money to the government. If the government confiscates someone’s money , it’s public record.
My understanding is that any monies won from The Meadows by Nestor were voluntarily paid back, or maybe not so voluntarily...but they got it back is my understanding.

Btw, this is what the writer did with Kane. He checked the court records and saw there were no records of Kane giving the money back. Why didn’t he do this with Nestor and Nestor’s friend?
Did Nestor even disclose the friend's name? He might have requested of the interviewer that no specifics (or certain ones) as to the friend not be published. It's not at all unusual for conditions to be set for an interview.

It’s just hard for me to believe Nestor gave half million dollars to his friend. Why would he do this? If he didn’t trust Kane, why would he trust this guy with a half million dollars.
If you faced the possibility, however remote, of being arrested...wouldn't you want someone to know where your cash is located?

As far as the 50% he owed Kane, I would think Kane would understand taxes have to be paid on this amount so he’d only have taken 50% after taxes. At any rate, these two sure didn’t have things spelled out when they entered into this agreement. And once Nestor saw how easy it was, I’m sure he thought why am I giving Kane all this money.
I tend to agree with the last part, in particular. Deals are modified all the time as circumstances change, so it stands to reason that Nestor would realize that he holds the cards on the jackpots that he hits. I mean, it's not like Kane would roll and tell the casinos about Nestor because he couldn't do so without also disclosing the play and killing it for himself. We can debate all of the potential deals they could make all day long, but at the end of the day, Nestor's bargaining position is that he didn't need Kane for anything at that point.

I'm not suggesting that Nestor should give him nothing, or that Nestor shouldn't have went by the original deal...just that he was certainly in a position to renegotiate the terms.

All in all, a very interesting story. It shows what greed does to people.
Killed the play, among other things. That and laziness.