Gambler Who Lost $127 Million Wants Some Debt Forgiven!!!

SAN FRANCISCO (Dec. 8) -- Terrance Watanabe sometimes got so high on painkillers and alcohol in Las Vegas that he walked into doors and passed out at the gaming tables.

The Omaha philanthropist consumed more than two bottles of expensive vodka daily and gambled for days at a time without sleeping. In a single year, he lost $127 million at two casinos owned by Harrah's Entertainment. Nearly $1 billion in wagers passed through his hands. Read more link for full story...
This embarrassing portrait of excess and dissipation comes from legal documents filed by Watanabe's own attorneys, who are defending him against criminal charges that he still owes Harrah's nearly $15 million from his gambling spree.

Watanabe's lawyers cast the once wealthy businessman as the victim of heartless executives who enticed him to their casinos with offers of lavish rewards, then plied him with massive quantities of alcohol and drugs to keep him under control as they milked him of his fortune.

From Harrah's perspective, Watanabe is a deadbeat gambler who faces four felonies and is telling his story publicly in a desperate attempt to avoid jail.

A civil lawsuit and a complaint to the Nevada Gaming Control Board filed last month by Watanabe's lawyers allege that Harrah's kept him a virtual "captive" at the Caesars and Rio casinos in 2007 and supplied him with the prescription painkiller Lortab without a doctor's diagnosis or supervision.

"They preyed on a vulnerable person who had a gambling and alcohol addiction," said Pierce O'Donnell, one of his attorneys. "Terry Watanabe takes responsibility for what he did, and Harrah's needs to take responsibility for what they did."

Watanabe, 52, is the former head of the Oriental Trading Co., a direct marketing firm that sells novelties and party items. In Omaha, he is known for donating money to AIDS patients, military families and the police department. He now lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. He declined through his attorneys to be interviewed.

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