The action was announced on Friday (February 6), when the Gambling Supervision Commission published the results of an enforcement investigation into Shelgeyr Limited.

Shelgeyr operated under an Isle of Man licence from November 2018 until July 2024, when it voluntarily gave up its approval to offer online gambling services.

Details of the enforcement action

Regulators said the review uncovered repeated breaches of the Gambling (Anti-Money Laundering and Countering the Financing of Terrorism) Code 2019.

According to the commission, the company fell short across core safeguards, including enhanced due diligence, customer checks, record-keeping, risk assessments and ongoing monitoring of player activity.

Inspectors found that accounts were left open without the extra scrutiny required for higher-risk customers, even after red flags had been identified.

The regulator said Shelgeyr could not show that it had properly established customers’ source of wealth, applied enhanced checks to politically exposed persons or consistently monitored accounts over time.

Required documentation was either missing or poorly maintained, leaving gaps in audit trails that are meant to demonstrate compliance with the law.

In setting the penalty, the commission said the fine reflects the “serious nature” of the non-compliance.

At the same time, it acknowledged that the company and its senior staff cooperated fully during the investigation, which led to a reduction under the regulator’s discretionary penalty policy.

The commission said the outcome is meant to reinforce its statutory duties, including protecting customers, limiting financial crime and safeguarding confidence in the island’s gambling industry.

It also reminded boards and compliance teams that strong oversight, documented controls and demonstrable adherence to AML and counter-terrorist financing rules are expected at all times.

Under Isle of Man law, gambling businesses are subject to strict anti-money-laundering requirements designed to stop criminal misuse of betting platforms.

The commission has powers to impose civil penalties where inspections point to prima facie breaches, and it publishes enforcement outcomes to promote transparency and higher standards.

By making the findings public, the watchdog aims to send a clear signal that failures uncovered during routine inspections can carry financial and reputational consequences.

Although Shelgeyr no longer holds a licence, the commission said former operators remain accountable for conduct during their licensed period, particularly where customer protection and crime prevention are concerned.

The Shelgeyr case adds to a growing list of enforcement actions in recent years, including hitting online casinos SK IOM and Celton Manx with fines in July 2025.

Featured image: Canva

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The message sent out was that the Isle of Man remains open for business and welcoming to the sector, in the face of challenges from changing tax landscapes in other jurisdictions and the threat of the unlicensed black market. 

The Isle of Man is a British Crown Dependency with self-governing status, located in the Irish Sea, between England and Ireland. 

It is an entity that has autonomy to set its own laws and policy framework, while maintaining a positive working relationship with the United Kingdom.  

Isle of Man remains a secure, stable jurisdiction

Since 2001, under the oversight of the Gambling Supervision Commission (GSC), the Isle of Man has punched above its weight as a gambling destination, alongside the likes of Malta and Gibraltar.

This isn’t in the form of a betting mecca like Macau in the Far East or even Las Vegas, but as a reputable base for gambling operators underpinned by the GSC and its focus on stringent, transparent oversight. 

The statement issued by the Isle of Man government last week strived to emphasize that its reputation “continues to underpin confidence in the Island as a premier jurisdiction for high-quality iGaming businesses.” 

Chief Minister Alfred Cannan reflected on the importance of the iGaming sector for the Isle of Man’s economy over the past two decades and how the dynamic regulatory environment has been a mutual success story. 

“In the face of a more complex and challenging global environment in recent years, the Government has invested significantly in strengthening our understanding of risk and ensuring we have the right resources and frameworks in place to recognise and respond effectively to emerging threats, said Cannon.

He continued, “As we look ahead to ICE 2026 and other major industry events over the next 12 months, we will continue to work across industry and all agencies to ensure the Isle of Man remains a secure, stable, and trusted jurisdiction for high-quality and well-regulated iGaming businesses.”  

ICE 2026 is the massive global gaming industry convention, with this year’s edition hosted in Barcelona, Spain, from January 19-21. 

Crucial reassurance for the iGaming industry

The statement from the Chief Minister was largely welcomed by the industry, as reflected in a response from Mark O’Neill, managing director of Global Gaming Solutions. 

In his communication on behalf of the commercial gambling developer, he conveyed that the government provided vital reassurance following “a year that tested confidence across parts of the industry”.

“The Isle of Man Government’s reaffirmation of its commitment to the iGaming sector provides important clarity and reassurance for existing licence holders and the wider global industry,” said O’Neill.

He added the Isle of Man’s “long-standing focus on robust regulation, awareness and mitigation of emerging risks and constructive engagement with industry continues to underpin its reputation as a trusted and well-governed jurisdiction”.

Challenges from tax pressures in other markets

The Isle of Man enjoys a close relationship with the UK, but it has contrasting approaches to gambling laws, taxes, and frameworks. 

The Manx government maintains a business-friendly approach to attract gambling operators, with the contribution worth an estimated 11-21% of GDP. 

That is the importance of iGaming for the Isle of Man, with the major stimulus provided thanks to the progressive gaming duty of 1.5% on gross gambling yield (GGY) under £20 million ($26.9m), 0.5% on £20m to £40m, and 0.1% above £40m.

Conversely, the UK government, and particularly under the incumbent Labour administration, has prioritized stringent consumer protection and domestic market control under broader national legislation.

In November 2025, UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves hiked gambling taxes (almost doubling remote gaming duty) in a policy change that was slammed by the industry. 

Similar rises are on the horizon in France and the Netherlands. 

The Isle of Man is not immune to these changing tax pressures, and it is a headwind that it has to face. 

There is a threat to the crucial GDP contribution from iGaming as major operators based in the jurisdiction are forced to respond to a greater tax burden. 

It is a monitoring issue of the utmost importance to tax policy for the Manx government, just as Gibraltar sounded a warning on the ripples from the UK’s tax hikes for its economy.

Threat from Southeast Asia and the black market

Tax issues are not the only formidable challenge to be met to maintain the Isle of Man’s standing and reputation as a premium gambling location. 

There are increasing problems coming from the black market and bad actors, particularly those located in Southeast Asia. 

Isle of Man authorities warned last year of a burgeoning “complex and sophisticated criminal landscape” in the region, and a reluctance to embrace operators or associated businesses with established links to the Southeast. 

As detailed in the National Risk Appetite Statement:

“The Isle of Man recognises that, in common with other jurisdictions, its online gaming and gambling platforms may be targeted by an evolving and increasingly complex and sophisticated criminal landscape in East and Southeast Asia.

“That landscape has extended outside of East and Southeast Asia, impacting countries worldwide, and there has become a need for increasing vigilance when conducting business linked to this region. 

“Sources available to the domestic authorities indicate that the Isle of Man has been subject to infiltration by criminals bypassing the Island’s controls against financial crime.”

The issue has been heightened with the recent arrest and extradition to China of Chen Zhi, a businessman with links to the Isle of Man. 

UK and U.S. authorities have accused Chen Zhi of using his Prince Holding Group, a multibillion-dollar conglomerate based in Cambodia, to establish a network of casinos and compounds to facilitate elaborate scams using forced labor.

Zhi was identified as the beneficial owner of Ableton Prestige Global Limited. 

It was busted by Isle of Man police last March in connection with a major international money laundering probe.

Similarly, the National Financial Crime Strategy for 2024-2026 outlined an increase in the overall money laundering risk, with specific relevant threats to the gambling ecosystem.

The Isle of Man’s overall online gambling industry was also flagged as having a medium risk of terrorist financing, but all of this and more is why a multi-agency, coordinated approach is taken on the island to safeguard and protect the wider gambling framework.

Image credit: @IOMGovernment/X

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Helms pled guilty to conspiracy to engage in the illegal business, which reportedly drew in up to $100,000 per week at its peak. However, Helms was not alone in the gambling ring, as he worked with Fred McCary, who was separately arrested and sentenced to six months in prison and then six months of house arrest.

The scheme involved running a video poker operation, which was run out of McCary’s properties and home. Between 11 am and 2 am, two shifts would be run, requiring separate workers to keep it going.

Helms has avoided prison entirely and hasn’t been fined in any capacity. Effectively, as long as he remains out of trouble for five years, Helms has avoided any other legal headaches this brings.

South Carolina remains one of the few states enacting total gambling ban

A vast majority of gambling is illegal in South Carolina. State lottery, charitable gaming, and Daily Fantasy Sports are allowed. Even though online gambling is banned in one of the few states that still block the activity, despite its ever-growing hold over America.

Currently, there’s a push to get the first casino licensed in the state. A new proposal from January 13 would redirect 35% of all casino revenue to land conservation, in an attempt to make the act of gambling used for good.

There’s also a proposed 15% tax on casino revenue, which could push the state’s overall gains to a maximum of $39.3 million. That figure might look paltry compared to other states, but this is for a theoretical single casino.

Featured image: Peter Mai via Wikicommons / CC BY-SA 2.0

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Kaileb Harper, a transgender African-American man, alleged in a lawsuit filed last month in California state court that an employee of the fitness chain repeatedly misgendered him and taunted him by referring to him as “ma’am” — this despite being told his pronouns were “he/him.”

Harper, a 24 Hour Fitness member who used the Bellflower, Calif., location, alleges in the lawsuit filed Dec. 18 in Los Angeles Superior Court that he complained about the employee’s conduct to management.

A transgender man is suing 24 Hour Fitness after he was told he had to wear a shirt in a sauna while other men were allowed to bare their chests. Google Maps

The worker, who was identified in court papers as “Kenny,” angered Harper when he insisted that the customer wear a shirt in the coed sauna even though “other patrons who identified as male” were not required to do so.

According to the lawsuit, Harper previously used 24 Hour Fitness’s World Trade Center location in Long Beach, which included a gender-neutral bathroom.

Initially, the gender-neutral restroom required a key to access it, but then the gym restricted it to staff-use only, according to the lawsuit.

After Harper lost access, he began using the men’s restroom at the gym.

In 2022, another member allegedly noticed scars on Harper’s chest, following him out of the bathroom and made him feel harassed because he is transgender, according to the complaint.

According to the lawsuit, Kaileb Harper first started using 24 Hour Fitness’s World Trade Center location in Long Beach, which included a gender-neutral bathroom. 24 Hour Fitness

Harper said he reported the incident to the gym’s management and requested access to the gender-neutral bathroom.

He alleged in the complaint that management made no effort to accommodate him.

Harper said in 2023, he began using the Bellflower location.

Harper alleged in the complaint that he complained about Kenny’s conduct to other employees, but no investigation was conducted and subsequent complaints were never escalated to management.

Harper says he was denied access to the gender-neutral bathroom at the 24 Hour Fitness location in Long Beach. 24 Hour Fitness

Harper is suing under California’s Unruh Civil Rights Act and for intentional infliction of emotional distress.

“Due to the repeated acts of discrimination and the failure to remedy it, Mr. Harper has been discouraged from fully utilizing the benefits, privileges and accommodation as a member of 24 Hour Fitness,” the complaint sated.

Harper said as a result, he has “lost past and future income and employment benefits, damage to his career, and lost wages” in addition to “psychological and emotional distress, humiliation and mental and physical pain and anguish.”

The plaintiff is seeking damages in excess of $35,000.

The Post has sought comment from Harper and 24 Hour Fitness.

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Thomas Tonar, 61, worked for Nevada’s Dotty’s Casino locations throughout the state, and as part of a joint police effort, was arrested while on the run with the ill-gotten gains.

A casino employee has been sentenced to prison for embezzling three-quarters of a million dollars: https://t.co/H4ybeMXFRe pic.twitter.com/Tiwo2uRCKc

— Washoe County DA (@WashoeCoDA) December 29, 2025

Upon his arrest, the officers found Tonar in possession of the lion’s share of the funds and carrying multiple firearms.

Man arrested was on the run for Dotty’s casino embezzlement

The Washoe County District Attorney’s Office published a statement about Tonar and the illegal pocketing of the proceeds in the run-up to his apprehension.

Security camera image shows a man handling cash inside a back-office area. Credit: Washoe County District Attorney’s Office

The statement said that Sparks Police Department officers were called to Tonar’s employer’s location in 2025 amid speculation that he was stealing money. CCTV video then confirmed that Tonar had been taking money from multiple Dotty’s Casino office locations.

“Detectives from both Sparks and Reno Police joined together on the case and discovered that the defendant had embezzled from six different locations, taking a total of $714,713.59,” said the District Attorney’s Office.

The man had tried to escape the state with the proceeds of his continued theft and was later arrested by police .

“Tonar then drove out of state and into California,” read the release. “He was arrested a few days later at a motel in Sacramento in a joint operation by law enforcement. A search of his belongings recovered $677,069 of the stolen money and three guns.”

Tonar’s sentence was handed down by presiding Judge Barry Breslow for four counts of embezzlement valued at $100,000 or greater, and two counts of embezzlement valued under $100,000.

The total sentence for Tonar was reported to be between eight and thirty years in prison.

In related news surrounding a casino robbery, three individuals were arrested after a coercive hotel room crime. The man and two women were given multiple charges for the intimidation and threat to life with a knife to a patron of the Bally’s Twin River resort.

Featured image: Washoe County District Attorney’s Office

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In 2011, he joined Crocs as Chief Brand Officer and accomplished what seemed impossible: making cheap foam shoes cool. He left in 2020 for Stanley, where he turned an oversized water bottle into a must-have item, then returned to Crocs last year to ramp up the brand’s partnerships and social media presence.

And he has unusual advice for executives looking to jolt a sleepy or small brand: Spend 50% of your time and almost all your marketing money on social media.

““I spend a lot of time on Instagram, WhatsApp, TikTok, YouTube … social media in general is just an amazing opportunity for any brand of any size,” he told me. “That’s where consumers are.

Terence Reilly, who handles branding for Crocs, advises other executives to spend at least half their time on social media. EMMY PARK

“A lot of purchase decisions begin on TikTok, and so we want to make sure that we are front and center.”

This year, Crocs has focused heavily on TikTok Live shopping, a modern-day QVC where people shop in real time, as well as the platform’s scrollable Shop. So has Hey Dude, another casual shoe brand the company acquired in 2022.

“Both brands, Crocs and Hey Dude, are the number one and number two footwear brands on TikTok Shop,” Reilly said.

Direct-to-consumer revenue has been up for Crocs, though overall revenue for both brands was down — 2.5% for Crocs and 21.6% for Hey Dude — year over year in the third quarter of 2025 as trends changed.

But Reilly is confident he can revitalize with limited-edition drops and by partnering with celebrities including Jelly Roll and Sydney Sweeney, who came on as a Hey Dude global spokesperson in August. (The actress’ controversial ads for American Eagle actually helped brand sales soar.)

He’s been here before.

Sydney Sweeney — who made waves with her American Eagle campaign this summer -— was named a global spokesperson for Hey Dude in August. Hey Dude

Sydney Sweeney in Hey Dudes. Instagram/ Sydney Sweeney

On his first day at the Colorado-based company, Reilly put up a poster in his office emblazoned with snarky criticism of Crocs: “Those holes are where your dignity leaks out.”

It was a reminder he would need to accomplish something that money typically can’t buy.

“We didn’t have an awareness problem… we needed to make Crocs cool,” Reilly explained as he gave me a tour of the brand’s revitalized mega-store on 34th street. “The brands didn’t want to be part of Crocs, or people didn’t want to be part of Crocs because they thought it was uncool.”

That meant years of reaching out to coveted celebrities and influencers, when Crocs should have been looking for something more organic.

After Crocs spotted Post Malone wearing a pair of the shoes, they partnered with him on a collaboration. Crocs

Crocs collaborated with high fashion brands including Balenciaga, which charged nearly $1,000 for a pair. Balenciaga

“We got a lot of nos for a long time,” Reilly said. That is, until 2016, when he spotted Post Malone wearing a pair of Crocs backstage.

“It was real,” the exec added. “We weren’t paying somebody to wear shoes—he was wearing them already, and his fans knew that.”

By 2017, they had launched a Crocs and Post Malone partnership.

Crocs now partners with dozens of brands and artists including Disney, Nerf, Nascar, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, SpongeBob, Star Wars, Pringles and MLB.

And while Reilly was grateful that luxury labels including Balenciaga and Christopher Kane jumped on the Crocs bandwagon a few years ago, featuring the shoes in their fashion shows, he knows that capturing high-fashion lightning in a bottle is probably not as likely as getting core customers excited again.

Terence Reilly, CMO of Crocs, almost exclusively wears Crocs. EMMY PARK

While Crocs stock faltered earlier this year (down 11% over six months), it’s rebounded more than 17% in the last month.

“I think there’s always an element of pop culture, [but] it always comes back to product,” Reilly said.

It also comes back to showing people you actually care. Like when, in 2023, Reilly got major attention after a woman posted on social media about her car catching fire — and her Stanley cup surviving it. He and the brand offered to buy her a new automobile.

“This young lady’s car caught on fire. I saw it on TikTok on a Wednesday, and Thursday I recorded a video without a script and posted it. All of a sudden I started getting phone calls saying, ‘Hey, you’re blowing up on TikTok.’ 100 million views later, I’m getting recognized in airports,” he said.

Reilly was also president of Stanley at the heights of the brand’s popularity. Getty Images

Asked about the role of luck in his success, Reilly pushed back.

“You make your own luck,” he said. “There’s always going to be an element of luck to anything, but you have to make it. You got to go out and swing, and we swing.”

He paused, gesturing at the Crocs displayed around the store. “I mean, there’s nothing like it. It is wonderfully unordinary. We sell shoes with holes in them.”

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Matthew Randall Ping admitted guilt in June 2025 to wire fraud and to filing a false tax return. Prosecutors said he stole nearly $900,000 from his former employer, the State of Washington, and spent much of it at casinos.

Olympia suspect’s ‘severe’ gambling addiction drove crime

During the sentencing, US District Judge Tiffany M. Cartwright pointed out how central gambling was to the crime. “Your crime was very serious but was driven by severe addiction…. Gambling addiction can destroy the life of someone who is otherwise an upstanding citizen,” Judge Cartwright said.

Former Washington state employee sentenced to prison for embezzling nearly $900,000 – Manipulated credit card payment processing system and expense review system to steal from state agency https://t.co/dBQrjpMVNa

— WDWAnews (@WDWAnews) September 11, 2025

Assistant U.S. Attorney Dane Westermeyer, who had asked the court to impose a 33-month sentence, was direct about how Ping used the stolen money. “He used this stolen taxpayer money to fuel his gambling habit, fund at least six trips to Las Vegas, pay off a luxury vehicle loan, and otherwise support his lifestyle,” Westermeyer wrote in his sentencing memo.

He added, “And, perhaps not surprisingly, he failed to report any of the income from his theft on his federal tax returns, which resulted in a tax loss of nearly $250,000.”

In court, Ping admitted that he had tried to get help for his gambling problem but said there were few resources available. Judge Cartwright encouraged him to push for better services and stronger regulations to help others dealing with the same addiction once he is out of prison.

Court records show that Ping started working at the Washington State Office of Administrative Hearings in 2009. By 2017 he had become a Management Analyst and the department’s credit card custodian. Between 2019 and 2023, he set up fake vendor accounts that allowed him to divert $860,756 into his own accounts, and he also made $17,359 in personal purchases at Verizon and Walmart. Investigators said he carried out a total of 210 fraudulent transactions.

Largest insider embezzlement in Washington in 15 years

Acting US Attorney Miller described the theft as both historic in scale and damaging to the public’s trust. “This theft was not just the largest insider embezzlement from Washington State in the last 15 years, it also undermines trust in our state financial safeguards,” Miller said. “Mr. Ping not only cheated state taxpayers, he cheated on his federal taxes as well by failing to pay the income taxes he owed on ill-gotten gain.”

The scheme was first discovered by the Washington State Auditor’s Office, and Ping resigned in 2023 after it came to light. He has agreed to pay back $1,118,362 in restitution to the state, its insurance company, and the IRS.

After completing his 18-month prison term, Ping will spend three years on supervised release.

Featured image: Canva

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Jerome Dewald sat with his legs crossed and his hands folded in his lap in front of an appellate panel of New York State judges, ready to argue for a reversal of a lower court’s decision in his dispute with a former employer.

The court had allowed Mr. Dewald, who is not a lawyer and was representing himself, to accompany his argument with a prerecorded video presentation.

As the video began to play, it showed a man seemingly younger than Mr. Dewald’s 74 years wearing a blue, collared shirt and a beige sweater and standing in front of what appeared to be a blurred virtual background.

A few seconds into the video, one of the judges, confused by the image on the screen, asked Mr. Dewald if the man was his lawyer.

“I generated that,” Mr. Dewald responded. “That is not a real person.”

The judge, Justice Sallie Manzanet-Daniels of the Appellate Division’s First Judicial Department, paused for a moment. It was clear she was displeased with his answer.

“It would have been nice to know that when you made your application,” she snapped at him.

“I don’t appreciate being misled,” she added before yelling for someone to turn off the video.

What Mr. Dewald failed to disclose was that he had created the digital avatar using artificial intelligence software, the latest example of A.I. creeping into the U.S. legal system in potentially troubling ways.

The hearing at which Mr. Dewald made his presentation, on March 26, was filmed by court system cameras and reported earlier by The Associated Press.

Reached on Friday, Mr. Dewald, the plaintiff in the case, said he had been overwhelmed by embarrassment at the hearing. He said he had sent the judges a letter of apology shortly afterward, expressing his deep regret and acknowledging that his actions had “inadvertently misled” the court.

He said he had resorted to using the software after stumbling over his words in previous legal proceedings. Using A.I. for the presentation, he thought, might ease the pressure he felt in the courtroom.

He said he had planned to make a digital version of himself but had encountered “technical difficulties” in doing so, which prompted him to create a fake person for the recording instead.

“My intent was never to deceive but rather to present my arguments in the most efficient manner possible,” he said in his letter to the judges. “However, I recognize that proper disclosure and transparency must always take precedence.”

A self-described entrepreneur, Mr. Dewald was appealing an earlier ruling in a contract dispute with a former employer. He eventually presented an oral argument at the appellate hearing, stammering and taking frequent pauses to regroup and read prepared remarks from his cellphone.

As embarrassed as he might be, Mr. Dewald could take some comfort in the fact that actual lawyers have gotten into trouble for using A.I. in court.

In 2023, a New York lawyer faced severe repercussions after he used ChatGPT to create a legal brief riddled with fake judicial opinions and legal citations. The case showcased the flaws in relying on artificial intelligence and reverberated throughout the legal trade.

The same year, Michael Cohen, a former lawyer and fixer for President Trump, provided his lawyer with phony legal citations he had gotten from Google Bard, an artificial intelligence program. Mr. Cohen ultimately pleaded for mercy from the federal judge presiding over his case, emphasizing that he had not known the generative text service could provide false information.

Some experts say that artificial intelligence and large language models can be helpful to people who have legal matters to deal with but cannot afford lawyers. Still, the technology’s risks remain.

“They can still hallucinate — produce very compelling looking information” that is actually “either fake or nonsensical,” said Daniel Shin, the assistant director of research at the Center for Legal and Court Technology at the William & Mary Law School. “That risk has to be addressed.”

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We’re back at the White Lotus, gang. That means Sunday night social media, equal parts wealth porn and hatred, and the return of the “braggy beach book.”

In previous seasons, the show’s conspicuous titles have served a satirical purpose. There’s a lot of laughs to be mined from the ways the idle rich try (and evidently fail) to self-improve.

Season one minted the concept of Book Girl Summer when two erudite Zoomers brought Lacan and Fanon to the pool.  Season two saw Aubrey Plaza’s Harper, an immigration lawyer, take a distracted pass at Valeria Luiselli’s The Lost Children Archive. But fretting about her husband’s imagined infidelity regularly trumped that tour de force on the border crisis.

Some wise speculators have noted that so far into season three, the books seem less prominent. But I’ve been assured that this is not a commentary. This year’s crop is supposed to be more or less as literate as previous guests. (Parker Posey’s pill-addled Victoria perhaps notwithstanding.) Titles may be out of focus because of the DP’s preference for close-ups this season. Also, certain publishers levy prohibitive licensing fees, and even the big shows are feeling budget cuts.

But as to the how of it all? I spoke with Michael Cory, props master for White Lotus season three, about the titles that go into a guest’s bag. The following conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

How you go about book selecting for this specific universe?
I mean it’s one of the more fun things for me on most jobs, because it gets right into either who people are or who they want to be. 

Were titles mentioned in this season’s scripts? Or were books something you got full jurisdiction over?
Well sometimes they are, but on this project I talked to Mike [White] about it, in one of my first meetings with him. I came up with a list of what I liked for certain characters initially, then he sent me a list that he liked. Then, once the actors were cast, it kind of ran off in different directions. But I think the only scripted books this season were fictional.

As in “invented?”
Yeah. Well Piper’s there to visit the monks and possibly join their program, so we created six different titles for that monk. We had them in Thai as well as English. And you see them sort of in the background at the meditation center. I have to rewatch it to see if they’re even visible. I was tooling around with having them in German and Russian, also. But we ran out of time to create all those covers. And that’s sort of the harder thing—to make a fake book look real. 

I imagine so. Especially against recognizable titles. I notice [Natasha Rothwell’s] Belinda is reading something real, in the latest episode…?
Yeah, that was a fun one. 

What was the title of that book?
Somebody figured it out online. But it’s actually Surrounded by Narcissists: How to Effectively Recognize, Avoid, and Defend Yourself Against Toxic People (and not lose your mind). [By Thomas Erickson].

Oh, that’s funny. I love what a big part of the character storytelling that does.
Sometimes it might be a little bit on the nose. But we couldn’t resist. 

Could you tell me a little about how you found the books for this crop of White Lotus-ers?
Some were ideas in advance, and some came from going to the bookstores in Thailand. Bangkok is a wonderland of all sorts of bookstores. Yeah there was one, I think it was called Asia Books? Half stationery store, half bookstore. There was the Thai section and the English section. And we were looking for books for Thai characters as well. Mook [Lalisa Manobal] has a book in her bag, though I don’t think you can ever see what it is.

We had to decide which books characters bought in Thailand, and how many books [they brought from home]. Like for Piper [Sarah Catherine Hook; arguably the show’s most literary character], I was buying from the local bookstores in Durham and Chapel Hill. Like the university bookshops, the university press. And putting their bookmarks in her books.

That’s an amazing attention to detail.
And I’d never stayed at a Four Seasons hotel until we started filming at one, and if you have a book out—and you know I had six or so books on my bedside table—and when I’d come back at night, each one of them would have a Four Seasons bookmark in them. So we stole that idea, too.

We made White Lotus bookmarks and stuck them in books around the hotel. 

How’d you find your way into prop mastery?
A love of film that ran through my whole family. My father always insisted on staying through the credits at the end of everything. So reading the credits and thinking, which job could I do?

I tried a bunch out but just kind of fell in love with the props side of it. It’s creative and problem solving and collaborative. 

Speaking of collaboration! I noticed that you worked on another HBO show, And Just Like That, which also has a pretty conspicuous syllabus. Can you comment on that experience?
It’s similar in a way that books are all over both shows. But [in AJLT] they’re in their own homes, they’re in New York. On White Lotus we can kind of get carried away. Like, how many books did these people actually bring with them to their supposedly weeklong vacation? But AJLT doesn’t have that issue. And Sarah Jessica Parker is a huge reader. Often we get, if not specific titles, genres or things she’s interested in at the time.

We actually have a rolling library that we just keep with us, to see what she wants to read in different scenes. 

Some of these titles I see Carrie holding are very buzzy, and therefore time-bound. Have you ever had to switch out a title, as production creeps closer?
That’s part of the trick. In that show, her character’s in the publishing world, so she thinks she has access to galleys. But that’s tricky for us because we never know when the show is coming out. And we try to work closely with the publishers to get things that aren’t necessarily released yet, but often times it fails because by the time the show actually airs the books are out. You can only get so far ahead.  

Well since you brought up your own TBR stack, did you manage to read any of your own vacation books in Thailand?
I thought I’d have more free time! But in Thailand I read Miranda July’s All Fours, and I read Jonathan Lethem’s Brooklyn Crime Novel, which is set in my neighborhood in New York. And before I went to Thailand I read Bangkok Wakes to Rain, a novel by Pitchaya Sudbanthad.

And there was a book I originally intended for Laurie. [Carrie Coon’s frazzled single character.] Which was Olivia Laing’s The Lonely City. 

Tee-hee.
Weirdly, the actress who played Piper became interested in that one, and she wanted to read it between scenes. There was one scene—which may be on the cutting room floor, but could pop up in a future episode—where she just pulled it out of her bag and started reading it. And we panicked, because most of the publishing companies are fairly friendly but some require licensing fees, and that one did.

As she pulled it out of her bag and we were like, “well, I guess we’re buying that book now…” Where normally, anyone who wants to charge us a fee we try to avoid.

It’s such a close way of looking at characters. Imagining what they’re reading.
Oh, yeah. We basically try to get in their heads as much as possible. What they’re reading, what they have in their bag. With [every object], we create our own little story of where they got it, why they have it, what it means to them.

I’m thinking of that old fiction adage about “what’s in your character’s purse…”
It’s also what people will tell you is in their purse vs. what’s actually in their purse. It goes with that thing of, which books you’ve actually read and which books are sitting in your house unread. 

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A Los Angeles man has been arrested following an “emergency situation” involving Elizabeth Lyn Vargas.

The Real Housewives of Orange County alum was rescued by police on Tuesday, Feb. 1, after being “held captive for a number of hours” inside her California home, according to her manager, David Weintraub. Vargas is now “doing fine,” Weintraub told local news outlet KABC-TV, but “has been extremely traumatized by the events.”

Per a Newport Beach Police Department press release obtained by E! News, officers intervened when they were called to a home near Balboa Pier for a welfare check. Upon arrival, police “observed an emergency situation that warranted the immediate evacuation of the victim from the residence,” authorities said, without confirming the victim’s identity.

“Once inside the residence, police officers encountered an armed male suspect who was actively threatening the life of the victim,” the release read. “Officers took immediate action and placed the suspect into custody.”

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