Ace of the Dragon Division - Chapter 479
Chapter 479: Acquiring Casinos
Peel’s death shocked the entire Las Vegas casino industry.
That profile of Xu Cheng in his hand was also taken away from his dead body, and that was why no one ever found out about who killed him.
But, the rich and powerful getting targeted, it was pretty normal for something like this to happen in Las Vegas. It was just that with the recent years of corruption being cracked down upon, and plus the personal security teams being more professional, normally, the rich were pretty safe. That was why it was still a bit alarming to the police that someone of status and level of wealth as Peel would be killed this easily.
The police could do all the investigations they wanted. However, if a case executed by the king of assassins could be solved by them, then it wouldn’t be Solo anymore.
Peel’s son took over all of the projects under Peel’s name in the casino industry, but at that moment, all of the finances were in the red!
And from that moment, Xu Cheng began concentrating all his attacks on Peel’s casino, which was the biggest one in the city.
After a week, when Peel’s son put up all of the family assets as collateral to keep the casino going yet was still being gnawed by Xu Cheng, suffering a week of losses of 2.2 billion dollars, all casino establishments under Peel’s name in Las Vegas were temporarily closed.
Other than the hotel segments, they still remained in operation to earn some money.
At the same time, two other casinos also announced their closure. One was a newly-opened casino where the owner took out a loan to start it. It was directly sniped by Xu Cheng until the debtors chased the owner into despair and he directly declared bankruptcy. The other casino closed because the investors chose to withdraw their funding.
All in all, from the end of the year to the spring of that year of Xu Cheng’s arrival, those two seasons were called by the entirety of Las Vegas as the Black Seasons! Two-quarters of finance of the entire Las Vegas could only be described as tragic.
Peel’s son wanted to use his dad’s connections to keep this casino running, so he tried to rectify the operations and went to financial institutions to get funding to prepare to open again.During the whole preparation stage, he went to Silicon Valley, and buying the highest level of technology available, he leveled-up all the equipment in the entire casino. For instance, the cards and dice rollers all used a special grade of material to prevent anyone from seeing through. They even increased the difficulty of most of their games to win more money from normal clients, which included letting professionals cheat at the table to win when the amount on the table was relatively large.
After re-opening for a week, various business conditions were all going great, and Peel’s son thought he was just too smart of a guy and actually solved the crisis. At this time, he wanted to take this opportunity when other competitors were weak to use his dad’s connections to get more funding. Many friends at Wall Street were all pretty interested, so they all began throwing in money.
When their wallets were full again, Xu Cheng came back to plunder again. It didn’t matter what kind of special aviation-grade materials or anti-cheat equipment they got going for them, he directly turned on his penetrating vision and ruthlessly turned the casino into a brutal slaughterhouse, figuratively. He lowered the betting amount, but he deployed 200 people at once so the winnings every day were a lot more than before.
Within just five days, not even a week, the entire 1.5 billion funding that Peel’s son was able to get all went straight down the drain. Chased by the debt collectors, he was forced to put up the entire casino as collateral.
But who would still dare to take over the casino at a time like this? Now, the entirety of Las Vegas was in a state of loss. The hotel projects were originally almost loss-leaders, where the rooms were super cheap to lure tourists in for them to spend tons of money at the casinos and retail stores. Without the casino, the overall revenue straight-up plummeted.
Peel’s son netted all the establishments in Las Vegas that were under his name, and he thought about selling them all as a bundle for 2 billion. If it was before, they wouldn’t even sell it for 5 billion.
But, other people weren’t stupid too. If it was before, there would be someone coming out to take the deal within the blink of an eye even if the price tag was 5 billion. But now, the segment that was originally most lucrative was no longer capable of generating a profit and was even losing a crap ton of money. If it was just the hotel section of the bundle, it wouldn’t be worth 2 billion at all! Other people weren’t stupid. If your casinos were losing money every day, who would still be willing to spend 2 billion to buy it?
The highest bidder was 1 billion!
At this time, Stenson came forward.
1.5 billion!
Peel’s son agreed without hesitation. “Deal!”
And then, from pedestrian malls, resort hotels, to casinos, the largest establishment in Las Vegas was bought under Xu Cheng’s name.
The four mafia bosses sat in Xu Cheng’s villa, they were quite envious.
Lin Dong poured a cup of tea for each of them, and the four of them weren’t in the mood at all for some tea. They anxiously asked, “Mr. Fang, so about the other casinos…”
Xu Cheng put down his cigar and nodded. “You guys go nuts. I told you, I won’t treat you badly if you follow me.”
The four of them all nodded in excitement as they picked up the teacups and raised it to Xu Cheng. “Mr. Fang, you are indeed a great business partner. We were wise to agree to work with you. Here, Mr. Fang, following your home country’s traditions, we will toast with this tea in place of alcohol!”
The four of them all downed the tea in one go, their faces filled with excitement and satisfaction.
“I can also help you guys snipe the other casinos. But as for acquiring those casinos, you guys can take care of it. Each of you has probably pocketed more than three billion since we began cooperating, right?”
“Of course, of course, we will take full care of it!” Saar waved his hand. “We got the money.”
Xu Cheng nodded. “But I will say the ugly words ahead of time. I brought you guys into this game, and I can also kick you out. For all things, it’s better to follow the rules. I know you guys don’t want to be known for doing shady business for your whole life. I’m not in a position to tell you what to do with your businesses back in Mexico, but! For the future prosperity of Las Vegas, I hope you guys don’t mess up the atmosphere and rules this city originally has, you guys know what I mean? Although this is the city of sin, don’t bring in the bad habits you guys had before. I know your black market has no rules, but here, if you want to make money for a long time, there must be rules!”
The other four immediately nodded and smiled. “That’s for sure, we also wanted to make the switch earlier. Don’t worry, since the casinos are legal, we will follow the laws and rules, we won’t mess around.”
Xu Cheng nodded. He picked up his teacup and said, “Alright. After you guys eat up these casinos, I won’t mess around with the casinos anymore. You guys can run the casinos, just do it well.”
The four of them nodded and clicked their cups in the middle. After they took over the casinos, they obviously wouldn’t want Xu Cheng to continue winning money. Actually, even until now, they don’t know how Xu Cheng did it. He never set foot into the casinos, yet he could guess the answer with a one-hundred-percent accuracy.
The craziest part was, he could even guess the Poker cards before they were dealt, as well as everyone’s hands.
In fact, it wasn’t these four people that admired Xu Cheng the most, it was those from the gangs that gambled for them at the casino. They basically just went in there blind and did exactly what Xu Cheng said to do. They would immediately obey the instructions and then bet accurately and win.
At first, normal people would immediately think that Xu Cheng had some moles inside the casino to help out, but even after the police, FBI, and the casino executives invited professionals to clean up the staff ranking, it didn’t seem to change a thing at all. Xu Cheng could still win money from the casino like none of it even happened.
Over the first two months, Xu Cheng robbed 19 billion from the casinos! This was even crazier than just robbing a bank. If anyone inside the mafia families weren’t convinced by Xu Cheng’s skills, everyone else probably would drown him in spit. All in all, Mr. Fang became like a god-like figure that the minions at the mafias wouldn’t even dare to talk about.
But, it wouldn’t matter if they talked about it. After all, Xu Cheng just used Fang as it was the slang for the Diamond suit in Poker, his real last name wasn’t even close to Fang.