The American Spectator

/p> p> Rumors of Hussein Family Gambling Abound br> July 7, 2004 — Sources in the gaming industry estimate that Saddam Hussein and his son Uday have lost as much as one billion dollars at the gaming tables. The Husseins, legendary high-rollers who hail from Iraq, have reportedly snuck out of the country in violation of U.N. rules and gone on high-priced gambling junkets in Australia and Nassau, where they lost more money. /p> p> Baghdad Returns to Chapter Eleven br> June 17, 2005 — The Baghdad Casino, in financial trouble since it opened last December with Rosie O’Donnell as its New Year’s Eve entertainment, finally filed for bankruptcy yesterday. This is the latest setback for the Hussein family, big gamblers from Iraq who also own the casino. Caesars Palace joined the list of casinos that have turned down Saddam or son Uday’s requests for lines of credit. The property, formerly the Aladdin, formerly a vacant lot, formerly the original Aladdin, has been in bankruptcy for most of the last 25 years and locals believed it was inevitable it would happen again. /p> p> Floorman Stricken at Craps Table br> October 24, 2007 — Saddam Hussein, a night-shift floorman at Pit No. 3 at the Imperial Palace Casino, collapsed on the layout last night and was pronounced dead on the scene by casino medical personnel. Hussein was remembered by other members of the pit crew as a boisterous man with a penchant for tall tales, from his adventures as a high roller to the time he was supposedly an Arabian warlord. Said a stickman at the table as they hauled away the corpse, “Sammy was one of a kind. He would insist that he once took a swing at some Washington, D.C. bigwig. We’ll miss his wild stories.” /p> p> Michael Craig, a writer in Scottsdale, Arizona, is most recently author of The 5 Minute Investor, a lazy investor’s guide to figuring out what’s happening in big companies. br> /p>