Lee DeMarco was the chief antagonist of the Angel episode "The House Always Wins" and was a thief who specialized in stealing the destinies of others, allowing him to make a profit out of robbing people of their destiny and leaving their near-mindless bodies as slaves to his casino business.
Biography[]
Lee DeMarco was the owner of the Tropicana, a casino in Las Vegas, and a former second-rate magician. When Lorne came to Las Vegas to try and make it as a singer, DeMarco took him on as an act- apparently with most of his staff assuming that Lorne's demonic appearance was due to him wearing a costume- only to force Lorne to identify those members of his audiences who had prominent futures- such as a young woman who would go on to own a successful chain of restaurants- so that he could use a mystical device of some sort to 'steal' their destinies and sell them to others, their bodies subsequently becoming virtually lifeless 'zombies' capable of doing nothing more than endlessly playing rigged slot machines. Lorne had refused him many times before doing so, only for Lee to shoot an innocent woman in the head, and tell him that that would go on if he kept refusing him. When Angel, Gunn and Fred came to Las Vegas to meet with Lorne, his machine even managed to take Angel's destiny- a fact that he was particularly pleased about given the unique nature of Angel's possible future-, only for his plans to be ruined when divine intervention from the temporary-ascended Cordelia allowed Angel to win at a slot machine, prompting his guards to take Angel to the main control room of the casino to learn what had happened just as DeMarco was planning to kill Gunn and Fred. Despite lacking a destiny of his own, Angel was apparently galvanized into action by the threat to his friends, keeping the guards occupied long enough for Lorne to destroy the machine and allow the stolen destinies to be returned to their rightful owners. DeMarco was last seen knocked out by the explosion of his device after Lorne destroyed it. It's currently unknown as to whether or not he was killed by the impact.