Brutal Santa

How to play Brutal Santa

Baldwin and fellow casino entrepreneur Shawn Scott arrived in Laos in 2007 with ambitious plans to build a casino business aimed partly at customers crossing the country’s borders.

The pair established Sanum Investments and partnered with Laotian conglomerate ST Group. Baldwin later testified that the investors initially committed around $7.5 million to the venture, which envisaged two casino resorts and several slot clubs.

Their biggest success was Savan Vegas, strategically located near the Friendship Bridge linking Laos with neighboring Thailand across the Mekong River. A planned second resort, Paksong Vegas, was never built.

About Brutal Santa

“Nearly half of all respondents (45%) say they’ve borrowed money to place sports bets, with 13% taking out a personal loan to bankroll their betting and 11% securing funds through a high-interest payday loan,” the report continued.

Many sports bettors are unfazed by the high-stakes financial reality of gambling on sports.

U.S. News reported that only 17% conceded sports betting is negatively affecting their financial health. By contrast, twice as many respondents (34%) claimed gambling on professional and college sports has had a positive impact on their finances. About half (49%) reported that sports betting has not impacted their bank accounts either way.

What is Brutal Santa?

According to the Gaming Machine Tax Act 2001, a tax rebate of up to 1.85% of a club’s gaming machine profits is made available to any registered club that records profits of over $1 million (US$715,000) during a tax year. 

This is only possible if the club in question allocates at least 0.75% of prescribed profits over $1 million to community-focused activities and services. These profits make up two-thirds of the ClubGRANTS scheme funding. 

The final third derives from a further 0.4% of a club’s gaming machine profits over $1 million during a tax year.