Vegas non-profit New Leaf Community recently announced that he was going to dissolve his organization. The reason for this choice was the misconduct of one of its founders, Joseph Lankowski. Ironically, I wrote about this same man last month in an article highlighting the mistreatment of the organization by Nevada officials. But now it turns out that could have been bad karma for Lankowski. Unfortunately, this karma has landed on our city’s homeless population.
New Leaf Community started in July 2020 and was entirely donation-based. According to lvrj.com, the Las Vegas-based nonprofit obtained the proper 501(c)(3) nonprofit status, but still operated as a “small business organization.” community support”. They used community donations to build tiny shelters for homeless citizens. The shelters were 100 square feet in size and provided each resident with a safe place to sleep and lock up their belongings during the day. This work will stop immediately and the organization has not said whether it will resume in the future.
As reported by lvrj.com, he was co-founder Robert Majors who discovered the misconduct of Lankowski. $36,000 is reported to have gone missing in the past 10 months, and Lankowski lost most of it playing in a casino. Lankowski, who suffers from substance abuse disorder and other addictions, sent an apology for his behavior.
“Words cannot describe how much I regret taking funds that have been so generously shared by such caring and hardworking members of our community. These donations were made because they believed in the work we were doing as a collective. I pray that my betrayal of the goodwill of these people will not deter people from continuing to help our city’s most vulnerable members in the future. (lvrj.com)
Lankowski plans to repay the missing funds when he can and said he is undergoing treatment for his drug addiction.
““I hope one day people can forgive me for all the hurt and pain I have caused so many people, but I understand that for some that day may never come” Lankowski wrote. “Anyway, I hope to make amends as much as I can with whatever I’ve hurt and I’m now going to focus on that process of accountability.” (lvrj.com)
New Leaf Community did not say whether or not he will pursue criminal charges.
–Wendy Rush, 96.3KKLZ Las Vegas
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10 of the biggest real casino heists of all time
From the moment you enter a casino, a thousand strategic choices – from the sounds of slot machines designed to disguise losses as winnings to the scented air, which for a Vegas casino increased slot machine revenue 45% – were made to keep you playing, and to keep you just hopeful enough to keep paying. It would be bad business for casinos to bankrupt players with one hand or intentionally pull a lever. And for every dangling carrot a player eventually catches, the house has already made sure to get it somewhere else.
So how can you really get the better of a system that is mathematically designed – what is called the house edge – to prevent you from doing so? Well, some people tried to cheat. There’s card counting (which isn’t technically illegal, according to federal, state, and local laws), card switching, card marking, dice slipping, dealer bribing, and the good old trick. eye (or carding). But even to have an edge when cheating, you have to play every hand perfectly, like the infamous MIT blackjack team. Determined to beat the house with even more complex math — if only theoretically, for now — MIT researchers are investigating whether quantum entanglement can give players an edge at the blackjack table.
For the average person without a quantum computer or the skills to count cards perfectly, any attempt at cheating is almost always noticed, monitored and, in some scenarios, authorized, says data scientist Jeff Jonas. And he should know: he developed the programs that casinos use to detect even the most subtle signs of fraud. NORA, or Non-Obvious Relationship Awareness, is software created by Jonas that uses available data to find connections, such as whether a dealer and player are related, live near each other, or casino employee has ties to known criminals. Any advantage the house hasn’t already secured through tamper-proof math, they’ve accounted for through oversight.
So if you can’t gain an advantage by following the rules or even breaking the rules, what else is there to do? Any sane person would tell you to reset your expectations or avoid casinos altogether. Some people throughout history have decided that they just aren’t going to play the game at all. Instead, they chose to steal them blind.
Casino heists are the ultimate underdog stories, and as such, it’s a favorite subgenre in filmmaking. While Hollywood has given us its own romantic take on the subject, the reality is arguably more dramatic and awe-inspiring when you consider how unlikely success is. OLBG has compiled a list of the 10 Biggest Casino Heists ranging from “Ocean’s 11” style complexity to stunning simplicity.
