Aisar 2

More crypto & financial news.

[Aisar 2 @aisarcore2]

@aisarcore @AisarLabs This is wild

[Aisar @aisarcore]

A Nebraska businessman sold his company for $500 MILLION, got bored, and walked into a casino. In one year he lost $127 MILLION. The casino kept giving him vodka and painkillers in a candy box to keep him at the table. He sued them for it. They fined the casino $225,000.

– Terrance Watanabe spent 25 years building Oriental Trading Company

– His family's party-favor import business in Omaha, Nebraska, into one of the largest mail-order retailers in America.

– In 2000 he sold it. His net worth was around $500 MILLION.

– Then he had nothing to do.

– He discovered a Harrah's casino across the river in Council Bluffs, Iowa. Started going to pass the time.

– By 2005 he was flying to Las Vegas regularly. By 2006, he was living there full-time.

– Steve Wynn noticed him at the Wynn casino and called him into a private meeting.

– He could see that Watanabe was a compulsive gambler and an alcoholic.

– He banned him from the property not wanting to violate Nevada law, which prohibits casinos from letting visibly intoxicated people gamble.

– Harrah's called him the same week. They offered $12,500 a month in airfare, Rolling Stones tickets, $500,000 in gift store credit, and 15% cash back on any table losses over $500,000.

– They gave him a free three-bedroom suite at Caesars Palace and he accepted.

– 2007 Terrance Watanabe bet $825 MILLION across Caesars Palace and The Rio.

– The largest amount ever wagered by a single individual in Las Vegas history.

– He lost $127 MILLION of it. One man generated 5.6% of Harrah's entire Las Vegas gambling revenue that year.

– Casino staff kept him supplied with his preferred vodka at all times.

– When he became addicted to prescription painkillers, staff delivered Lortabs to him at the table hidden inside boxes of candy.

– He sometimes played for 24 hours straight and once lost $5 MILLION in a single day.

– At one point he played three blackjack hands simultaneously at $50,000 per hand.

– His sister showed up at Thanksgiving 2007 and had no idea what had happened. She took him home to Nebraska. He went to rehab.

– When the lawyers started tallying the losses, the real number wasn't $127 million. After Harrah's was forced to hand over their internal records, it came to $204 MILLION.

– He sued Harrah's for $20 MILLION, claiming they had kept him intoxicated to keep him gambling. The Nevada Gaming Control Board opened its own investigation.

– The casino was fined $225,000 for allowing him to gamble while visibly intoxicated.

All criminal charges against Watanabe were dropped as part of a global settlement. The terms were confidential.

[Aisar 2 @aisarcore2]

@aisarcore @AisarLabs Insane

[Aisar @aisarcore]

A couple found a credit card with no cap on its top cash back tier. They turned $50,500 of available credit into $6.4 MILLION in fake spending. The IRS took them to court trying to tax the rewards as income. The couple won.

– David and Tatyana Anikeev found that the Blue Cash American Express card paid 5% cash back on everyday purchases after the first $6,500 a year, with no cap after that.

– They started buying gift cards and money orders directly with the credit card, then used that same cash to pay off the card balance they had just charged.

– Each cycle generated 5% cash back on money that never actually left their own pocket.

– To pull it off, they ran roughly 125 separate payments through just $50,500 in combined credit limit over less than two years.

– Total spending was $6.4 MILLION.

– Depositing over $4 MILLION in money orders into their bank accounts put them on the IRS's radar.

– The IRS argued the cash back should be taxed as income since it came from buying cash equivalents, not real goods.

– The case went to the US Tax Court.

– The court ruled the cash back was a legitimate, non-taxable rebate, the same as any other credit card reward.

– The couple kept the money.

– Credit card companies have since capped almost every high-cash-back tier to close this exact loophole.

A couple found a credit card with no spending cap on its top reward tier and turned $50,500 of available credit into $6.4 million in fake purchases. The IRS sued to tax it as income. The court sided with the couple.

[Aisar 2 @aisarcore2]

@aisarcore @AisarLabs Wild

[Aisar @aisarcore]

A couple in Massachusetts canceled their dream vacation because their fridge broke. They went grocery shopping to console themselves instead. They bought a $5 scratch ticket, threw it in the trash by accident, and almost lost $1 MILLION without ever knowing it.

– Joseph and Joanne Zagami of North Attleborough, Massachusetts had a vacation booked.

– Their refrigerator broke down right before the trip and they had to cancel it.

– To make up for it, Joanne sent Joseph out to do the grocery shopping and pick up a few lottery tickets while he was there.

– At a Stop & Shop vending machine he bought a $5 scratch ticket from the Massachusetts Lottery's $1 MILLION Jackpot game.

– He tossed the ticket into one of the grocery bags without a second thought.

– They got home, unpacked the groceries, and threw out the empty bags along with the trash.

– Neither of them remembered the ticket was still inside one of them.

– They headed out to a casino that same night to try their luck somewhere else entirely.

– The next morning Joseph asked Joanne if she had scratched the ticket yet.

– She said no. Neither of them had.

– They realized what had happened. The ticket was gone. Thrown out with the trash the night before.

– Joseph went searching through the garbage the next morning, digging through discarded grocery bags until he found it.

– He scratched it standing right there. Then ran into the bedroom and woke Joanne up.

– "I scratched the ticket, ran into the bedroom, and woke Joanne up," Joseph later told ABC News. "She looked at it and said, 'Oh my god! Wow!'"

– It was a $1 MILLION winner.

– They claimed the prize on July 24, 2013, choosing the lump sum payout of $650,000 before taxes and $455,000 after.

– "We've gone through death, we're going through a wedding, we're going through a child being born," Joseph said.

– The money went straight to their mortgage and outstanding bills.

A broken fridge ruined their vacation. A $5 ticket from a grocery run almost got thrown in the trash. They found it digging through garbage the next morning purely out of curiosity. It was worth $1 MILLION.

[Aisar @aisarcore]

For years AT&T sold MILLIONs of people an "unlimited" data plan. The data was not unlimited. They secretly slowed it down after 2GB and never told anyone. 3.5 MILLION customers were affected. They had to pay $60 MILLION in fines.

– In 2011 AT&T quietly made a change to its unlimited data plans.

– Once a customer used 2 gigabytes in a billing cycle, AT&T would throttle their speeds slowing them down so severely that web browsing and video streaming became nearly impossible.

– The plan was still called "unlimited." The price never changed. The customers were never directly told.

– By 2014 more than 3.5 MILLION people were paying for unlimited data and receiving something very different.

– The FTC sued AT&T that same year.

– AT&T's response was not to dispute the facts. Their response was to argue that the FTC had no legal authority over them at all.

– They spent the next four years in court fighting not the case but the regulator itself.

– They won the first appeal. The FTC was temporarily blocked from pursuing them.

– Then the FCC and the other regulator fined AT&T $100 MILLION separately for the same conduct.

– AT&T argued the fine should be $16,000.

– Then the FCC scrapped the very rules that allowed them to punish telecoms companies. Suddenly AT&T had no regulator to answer to at all.

– Both the FTC and FCC scrambled to fix the situation.

– In 2018 a full appeals court panel overturned the earlier decision and ruled the FTC did have authority.

– In 2019 AT&T settled for $60 MILLION. The money was split among 3.5 million customers.

– Most received between $12 and $33 each.

– AT&T made $170 BILLION in revenue the year they settled. They never admitted wrongdoing.

AT&T charged 3.5 MILLION people for unlimited data while secretly making it unusable.

[Aisar 2 @aisarcore2]

@ScrappyXBT GM friend

[Aisar 2 @aisarcore2]

@aisarcore @AisarLabs mind blowing

[Aisar @aisarcore]

A woman in Pennsylvania bought a winning lottery ticket. The store owner scanned it, told her it was worthless and kept it. She went home with nothing. He tried to claim $1 MILLION. The lottery cameras caught everything.

– In July 2024 a woman walked into a Shell gas station in Murfreesboro, Tennessee and bought two scratch-off lottery tickets.

– She handed them to the clerk behind the counter, Meet Patel, to have them scanned and checked.

– Patel scanned the tickets. One came back as a winner.

– He told the woman it was not a winner so she left.

– Patel kept the ticket.

– He then drove to the Tennessee Lottery Commission's offices to claim the $1 MILLION prize himself.

– Lottery officials routinely verify large winners.

– The standard procedure includes pulling surveillance footage from the store where the winning ticket was purchased.

– They pulled the footage from the Shell station.

– It showed everything. The woman handing over the tickets to Patel scanning them and Patel keeping one.
The woman walking out with nothing.

– "It's pretty obvious," said Lieutenant Steve Craig of the Rutherford County Sheriff's Office.

– "Good enough to put in front of 12 jurors and they'll reach the same conclusion."

– Patel was arrested. Charged with felony theft of more than $250,000. Held on $100,000 bail.

– The ticket was returned to its rightful owner, a local father who had no idea he had won anything until detectives showed up at his door.

– "The feel-good side of this story," Craig said, "is he never knew he was the winner until we made contact with him. That is absolutely life-changing money."

A gas station clerk told a woman her scratch-off ticket was worthless and kept it. It was worth $1 MILLION

[Aisar 2 @aisarcore2]

@aisarcore Crazy haha

[Aisar @aisarcore]

A Reddit user found a glitch in a $7.6 BILLION trading app that gave him unlimited borrowing power. He turned $4,000 into a $1,000,000 stock position. Robinhood had no idea it was happening.

– ControlTheNarrative was a regular user on WallStreetBets

– A Reddit's stock trading forum known for reckless bets and even more reckless confidence.

– Robinhood Gold let users trade on margin, put down $2,000 and get $4,000 of buying power. Standard practice.

– Then he noticed something.

– When he sold a covered call using borrowed margin money, Robinhood's system counted the proceeds as his own cash instead of borrowed funds.

– That meant he could borrow against it again. Then sell again. Then borrow again. Every cycle doubled the number.

– $2,000 became $4,000. Then $8,000. Then $16,000. There was no ceiling.

– He posted a video on Halloween 2019. WallStreetBets called it the infinite money cheat code and it spread everywhere within hours.

– One user turned a $4,000 deposit into a $1,000,000 stock position and posted the screenshot.

– Another turned $2,000 into $50,000 of buying power on camera in minutes.

– Some used it carefully. Others did not.

– One user bought $50,000 in Apple options with money he could never cover. They expired worthless. He owed Robinhood $48,000 he didn't have.

– Robinhood told CNBC they were "aware of isolated situations." There was nothing isolated about it.

– They patched the glitch within days. No criminal charges were ever filed.

A $7.6 BILLION trading app accidentally built a money printer and left it on the internet. Reddit found it on Halloween. It took Robinhood less than a week to notice.

[Aisar 2 @aisarcore2]

@aisarcore @AisarLabs Keep posting these please haha

[Aisar @aisarcore]

A Waffle House waitress in Alabama was tipped a lottery ticket instead of cash. Six days later she found out she had won $10 MILLION. Then her life fell apart.

– Tonda Dickerson was a divorced single mother in her late 20s working five shifts a week at the Waffle House in Grand Bay, Alabama in 1999.

– On March 6, 1999, a regular customer named Edward Seward came in for breakfast.

– He was a long-time truck driver who tipped the waitresses with Florida lottery tickets the same way other people left dollar bills.

– He handed out five envelopes that morning. One to each waitress. Tonda's had a lottery ticket inside.

– Six days later the numbers were drawn. Tonda had won $10 MILLION.

– She chose 30 annual payments of $375,000 instead of a lump sum. Then she quit her job.

– The next day, before she had even collected a single payment, her four coworkers sued her.

– They claimed all five waitresses had a standing agreement if any of them ever won from a tipped ticket, they would split it.

– A couple who regularly ate at the Waffle House testified that they had personally heard Tonda agree to the arrangement.

– A jury ruled against Tonda in 45 minutes.

– She appealed to the Alabama Supreme Court.

– The Court reversed the ruling, the agreement couldn't be enforced under state law because it was "founded on gambling consideration," which is illegal in Alabama.

– Then Edward Seward, the man who gave her the ticket, sued her.

– He claimed she had promised him a new truck if she ever won. The case was dismissed.

– Then the IRS came. They argued she owed over $1 MILLION in gift taxes on top of income tax because she had transferred most of her winnings to family through a corporation she set up.

– She fought it for years. She lost, but the amount was reduced.

– Then her ex-husband found her. He forced her into a car at gunpoint and drove her toward a remote stretch of rural Alabama, telling her he was going to kill her.

– While he was distracted by a phone call, Tonda grabbed his gun and shot him in the chest. He survived. She was never charged. He served a brief prison sentence.

– The last anyone checked, Tonda Dickerson was working as a poker dealer at a casino in Biloxi, Mississippi.

A regular customer left a lottery ticket instead of cash. The waitress won $10 MILLION then she had to fight her coworkers, her customer, the IRS, and her ex-husband just to keep it.

[Aisar 2 @aisarcore2]

@aisarcore @aisargatrif Wild

[Aisar @aisarcore]

A man with no working truck convinced Wall Street he had built the next Tesla. His company hit $30 BILLION. All he did was push it down a hill with no engine.

– Trevor Milton founded Nikola in 2015, named after Nikola Tesla.

– The goal was hydrogen-powered trucks that would kill diesel. He had no working trucks.

– In 2018 he released a video called “Nikola One In Motion.”

– It showed a sleek semi accelerating down a highway. Investors went wild.

– The truck had no engine, no fuel cell, no propulsion. His team towed it up a hill, tilted the camera, and let it roll.

– He spent the next years doing the same with words on podcasts, TV, and social media.

– Investors were told Nikola could make its own hydrogen. It couldn’t.

– Trucks were ready for production. They weren’t. Orders were flooding in. They weren’t.

– In June 2020 Nikola went public. Within days it was worth $30 BILLION, more than Ford at the peak.

– Milton’s stake hit over $7 BILLION.

– He bought a $32.5 MILLION ranch in Utah a state record at the time.

– In September 2020 Hindenburg Research called Nikola “an intricate fraud” built on “an ocean of lies.” Milton resigned days later.

– A federal jury convicted him of securities and wire fraud in 2022 and sentenced to four years in 2023.

– He never went to prison. Free on $100 MILLION bail pending appeal.

– He and his wife donated nearly $2 million to Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign.

– In March 2025 Trump gave him a full pardon. It erased hundreds of millions in restitution to defrauded shareholders.

– Nikola filed for bankruptcy in February 2025, leaving investors with nothing.

The company never delivered on its promises. The only things that were real were the $30 BILLION valuation, the billions that landed in his pocket, and the pardon that let him keep it.

[Aisar 2 @aisarcore2]

@aisarcore This is insane

Good for them haha

[Aisar @aisarcore]

A broke gambler found a bug in a Las Vegas casino's video poker machine. He called his friend. Between them, they took $500,000 from casinos across America. The FBI charged them with hacking. A judge threw the case out because pressing buttons on a slot machine is not hacking.

– John Kane had spent years losing money in Las Vegas casinos.

– By 2009 he was a regular at the Fremont Casino, feeding money into the same IGT Game King video poker machines everyone else played.

– Then one afternoon he pressed the buttons in an unusual sequence and something happened that wasn't supposed to happen.

– The machine let him replay a previous winning hand at ten times the original bet.

– He sat completely still. Then he did it again.

– He called his friend Andre Nestor in Pennsylvania and told him to get on a plane.

– Together they worked out the full sequence. You lost small at the lowest denomination. When you finally hit a big hand, you switched to the highest denomination and replayed it.

– The machine paid out at the higher rate every time.

– The four machines they normally played at the Fremont brought the casino $14,500 a month.

– After Kane and Nestor discovered the bug those same four machines cost the casino $75,000 a month.

– Kane took $100,000 from the Fremont alone. Then they spread out, the Hilton, the Stratosphere, the Hard Rock, the Tropicana, the Luxor, the Wynn. In Vegas, Kane accumulated over $500,000.

– Nestor went back to Pennsylvania and hit The Meadows Casino for nearly $480,000 in two months.

– Casino surveillance caught on. Kane was handcuffed to a chair in a back room at the Silverton Casino mid-session.

– The FBI charged both men with hacking under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, the same law used to prosecute cybercriminals.

– Their lawyers argued one thing: pressing the buttons on a machine exactly as designed is not hacking.

– A video poker machine is not a protected computer under federal law.

– The judge agreed. Hacking charges dismissed entirely.

– The prosecution tried a deal, testify against your friend and walk free. Both refused.

– The wire fraud charges were eventually dropped too.

– Neither man went to prison. Kane went home and started teaching piano. Nestor went home broke, and the IRS came for $240,000 in back taxes on his winnings.

– IGT quietly patched every Game King machine in America.

Two men found a bug in a Las Vegas video poker machine and took $500,000 from casinos across America by pressing buttons in the right sequence. The FBI called it hacking. A federal judge called it playing the game.

[Aisar 2 @aisarcore2]

@aisarcore Crazy as always

[Aisar @aisarcore]

A civil engineer spotted a promotion on a pudding cup. He did the math in his head. Then he spent $3,140 buying 12,150 cups of chocolate pudding and walked away with 1.25 MILLION airline miles.

– David Phillips was a civil engineer at UC Davis in 1999 when he walked down the frozen food aisle of his local grocery store.

– He spotted a Healthy Choice promotion on the shelf.

– Buy 10 products, mail in the barcodes, get 1,000 airline miles.

– Early-bird bonus if you mailed them before June 1st, the rate doubled to 1,000 miles per 5 barcodes.

– He did the math. At $2 per frozen meal the deal was decent. Then he wandered to the next aisle.

– Individual Healthy Choice chocolate pudding cups. 25 cents each. Each cup had its own barcode. The promotion didn't specify meal size.

– He went home and built a spreadsheet.

– Then he drove to the bank, withdrew cash, and told his wife they needed to buy as much pudding as they possibly could.

– He emptied every Grocery Outlet in the Sacramento Valley. Ten stores in total. 12,150 individual pudding cups.

– Total spent: $3,140.

– There was one problem. Each cup needed its barcode cut out and mailed in before the June 1st deadline. There were 12,150 of them. He couldn't do it alone.

– He drove to the local Salvation Army and made a deal. Volunteers would cut out every barcode. In exchange he would donate all 12,150 cups of pudding to their soup kitchen.

– They agreed.

– He mailed the barcodes. Then waited.

– Then large packages started arriving from Healthy Choice. Then more packages. Then more.

– In total: 2,506 certificates, each worth 500 miles.

– 1,253,000 airline miles. Enough for 31 round trips to Europe.

– Healthy Choice never tried to fight it. The promotion said any product. The pudding was a product. He followed every rule exactly as written.

– He also claimed an $815 tax deduction for donating the pudding.

– American Airlines gave him lifetime Gold status for crossing one million miles on their program.

– His story became famous enough that Adam Sandler based his character in the 2002 film Punch-Drunk Love directly on him.

– He has since used the miles to take his family to 43 countries across the world.

A civil engineer found a promotion on a 25 cent pudding cup, bought 12,150 of them, donated all the pudding to the Salvation Army, and walked away with 1.25 MILLION airline miles. The company honored every single one.