Mark Taylor

Not the one who has little, but the one who craves more, is poor. Finance, crypto, markets.

[Mark Taylor @MarkTaylormmh]

@0x_Squirrel Amazon did $386 billion in revenue in 2020. The whole $61.7 million is about an hour and a half of that.

[Mark Taylor @MarkTaylormmh]

@0xjakke Otis Blackwell took that deal. Elvis is listed as co-writer on Don’t Be Cruel and All Shook Up, and Blackwell split the royalties on both.

[Mark Taylor @MarkTaylormmh]

@dornwen He didn’t even need a lucky hand. He just had to pay. Somehow that was the hard part.

[Mark Taylor @MarkTaylormmh]

Charles Barkley lost $1M in a day 10 to 20 times and still nearly went to prison over $400,000.

His friends had a diagnosis: "You don't have a gambling problem. You're just an idiot."

May 2006. An ESPN interview.
Barkley puts the total out loud: about $10 million.
His worst run: $2.5 million gone in 6 hours at a blackjack table.
He laughs about it.

He keeps playing.

October 2007. Wynn Las Vegas.
He signs 4 casino markers. $100,000 each.

A marker looks like credit. It isn't.
In Nevada, an unpaid marker is a bad check. And a bad check is a crime.

Barkley walks out. The $400,000 never comes back.

7 months pass.

May 2008. Wynn sues.
Then the Clark County District Attorney steps in.
Not a debt case anymore. Felony theft.
1 to 10 years in a Nevada prison.

The most famous laugh on TNT goes quiet.

Within days, a $400,000 check is in the mail.
Plus $40,000 more to the DA's office.

His statement: "I screwed up."

Gambling cost him $10 million. Not paying almost cost him 10 years.

[Mark Taylor @MarkTaylormmh]

@kryneeex Vegas never cared how much he lost. Only whether he paid.

[Mark Taylor @MarkTaylormmh]

@callumxbt Uber didn’t post a full-year operating profit until 2023. That’s twelve years of holding a bet your wife called the worst idea ever.

[Mark Taylor @MarkTaylormmh]

@kryneeex Cus D’Amato died in 1985, a year before Tyson won the title at 20. Rooney got fired in ‘88. After that everyone around him was on payroll.

[Mark Taylor @MarkTaylormmh]

@NitePov The $474M came out of her bankruptcy. A housekeeper’s harassment suit pushed her into Chapter 11, Pierce filed a claim there, and she countersued.

[Mark Taylor @MarkTaylormmh]

@meroxbt Yes. Took about 2 years off, then went back. His new rule: “If I lose a couple hundred thousand dollars, I quit and still have a good trip.”

[Mark Taylor @MarkTaylormmh]

@RonaldThomso Exactly. The DA’s office made $40K for collecting a casino’s debt. Only in Vegas does the prosecutor work on commission.

[Mark Taylor @MarkTaylormmh]

@versivald Mike Bezos came over from Cuba alone at 15, Operation Pedro Pan. Then in 1995 he and Jackie put about $245k into Amazon. Hard to argue with “my Dad.”

[Mark Taylor @MarkTaylormmh]

@MaxSterlindh Elon slept on the Fremont factory floor during Model 3 production in 2018. Pretty clear where he got it.

[Mark Taylor @MarkTaylormmh]

@yuradeniis For about a year. Then he said he’d start gambling again “whenever I get ready.”

[Mark Taylor @MarkTaylormmh]

@Nepp0x Palm Beach police opened the Epstein case in March 2005, four months after that auction. The ban came two years later.

[Mark Taylor @MarkTaylormmh]

@vontrixai If he gave it away inside a year, his deduction was capped at the $70M he paid. The billion never touched his tax return.

[Mark Taylor @MarkTaylormmh]

@ubonotfound Tesla got taxpayer money too. $465M DOE loan, approved June 2009, the same month GM filed. Paid it back in 2013, nine years early.

[Mark Taylor @MarkTaylormmh]

@softarox Never saw a ban. Steve Wynn called him a “wonderful, talented guy” right after the lawsuit. Barkley banned himself instead: quit gambling for a year because “I was losing.” Then said he’d start again “whenever I get ready.”

[Mark Taylor @MarkTaylormmh]

@softarox George Shultz’s grandson Tyler worked there and brought him the problems. George sided with Holmes. Tyler ended up as one of the WSJ’s sources.

[Mark Taylor @MarkTaylormmh]

@hdfogel It’s in Greenlights, 2020. He’d already told Camila he was done with rom-coms, so the $14.5M was testing that promise, not the script.

[Mark Taylor @MarkTaylormmh]

@0x_Squirrel Parker was Dutch, in the US illegally, and never had a passport. Elvis never played a single show in Europe.