What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas! And what happens specifically in the casino stays between you, the dealer, and everyone with access to the security cameras.
Movies and TV shows often portray casinos as wild places full of debauchery and opportunities to earn thousands. However, the reality is that the owners of these casinos usually work hard to describe a perfectly curated image to the world.
Redditors have recently been revealing secrets that those in the gambling industry might not want you to know. From surprising ways companies encourage visitors to spend more to information these hotels want to keep under wraps, enjoy scrolling through this juicy list.
And be sure to upvote the details you think everyone should be aware of before putting money into a slot machine!
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Security has to constantly wander the parking lots to see if there are any babies or dogs being left in the car. Real bad if security doesn't notice in time.
S****y that they have to do it, great that they do it. ...even if it's propably partly for cleaning their image
Used to be a blackjack dealer, in NV. To me, the most disgusting thing was watching people I knew, who were struggling to feed their families, come in and feed their entire paycheck into a slot machine, or gaming table. And, I was never allowed to say anything. Not on or off the job. I ended up quitting, as it was so depressing.
Not *totally* hidden from the public since I, a member of the public, was shown it... but major casinos in Vegas have an armory room, stockpiles of weapons and tactical gear.
Was staying at a casino on the main strip, and had a number of guns with me for a meetup at a nearby shooting range, and asked the front desk if they had somewhere I could keep them since I didn't really like the idea of leaving them unattended in my room or car. A security guy came out and said "follow me to the armory", and led me to an extremely secure room full of all kinds of rifles and vests and whatnot, pointed to an empty locking cabinet I could put my stuff in, and gave me a claim ticket to pick them back up again later.
If you drunkenly break into the kitchen to make a quesadilla, they let you eat it before having someone take you back to your room.
The number of kids who are left alone at a casino so Mom and Dad can gamble. Not on the floor, but gift shops or food courts. It’s pretty sad.
I used to see them just sitting on the sidewalk outside of the casinos in downtown Vegas. Sometimes, fairly big groups of kids like several parents had left their kids there. It was terrible.
The security cameras are *scary* good. Like can read your name off your badge hanging off your waist good. You aren't doing a damn thing the camera can't see.
How safe casinos are for kids in a weird way. I had a young relative experience distress in LV and told her to get into any casino ASAP. Security intercepted her in a second and she was helped.
Even if you are just being followed. Any establishment with security will help you immediately. At least in Europe. Fancy luxury store you'd never be able to shop at? No problem. Club, gambling parlour and you are under age/Muslim, etc. Doesn't matter one bit. Yes in some countries bouncers tend not to have a stellar reputation but if you are in distress, reach out. In my experience they are far quicker to recognise danger and will not be playing it down.
I knew someone who hit the jackpot on a slot. It was around $200,000. The casino managers came out to verify, but they said the machine malfunctioned and it didn’t count.
How is that legal?
At this casino, employees were only allowed to gamble there 1 day a month. You'd think it'd be money right back into the casino's pocket, but they don't want the risk of an employee being heavily in debt.
"Not being in debt" was the nice pretext. The reason is they figured if employees gambled a lot with their fellow employees, the employees would start getting abnormally lucky at the tables.
When the MGM Grand opened in Las Vegas, you walked through a giant Lion’s mouth to get to the front door. Many Asian gamblers saw it as a sign of bad luck so they wouldn’t go in. Now it’s a smaller statue.
The number 4 is bad luck in Chinese culture so the casinos have a computer system where they will automatically not put somebody with a Chinese name (or a name that just might be Chinese, like Lee) in a hotel room with a 4 in the number.
The father of a friend of mine was robbed and stabbed in the parkade of a local casino in the late 90s, after he won big.
It never made the news, and a friend of mine who worked at the same casino 5 years later swore I was making it up because she had never heard anything about it. After talking to a few security guys she finally had someone give her an off the record, wink/nod confirmation that it did happen, but they went the extra mile to keep the story buried.
Fire Rock Navajo Casino has the best Pozole and Fry Bread I have ever tasted! I'm Mexican and I may just make a trip to eat their pozole!
A couple are not hidden, but not obvious to the average casino goer. Some casinos add scents to the air (they do not pump in extra oxygen in as some people believe). They also keep the temperatures on the cool side to keep people from getting sleepy. No clocks on the walls and, in general, no windows with views to the outside.
The no clocks trick still works because when you check your phone or watch it is a conscious thing. If you are distracted you wouldn't do this but a quick glance away from your game could take in a clock on the wall.
90% of casinos have private areas for the high rollers, politicians, gangsters, and other vips.
I was able to deal cards at one of those events. I was literally tipped $500 by some guy for keeping the water 'liquid'.
If you like to play slot machines never play penny slots. Those are the machines that make the casinos their most money. Play quarter or dollar machines you spend just as much or less each spin and they tend to have better payouts. But your brain says penny slots are cheaper but they have machines that you can hit $20 a spin and higher. Where I used to work penny machines had a 14% hold while quarter and dollar machines had an 8% hold. The hold is how much the machine will win over the lifetime of the machine the higher the hold the more you are likely not to win.
Also, a machine is never due. They use random number generators that act the moment you hit the spin button or pull the arm. The machine already knows if you have won or not and everything you see in front of you is for your entertainment.
Always use your player's card. Yes, they track your play and try to lure you back based on how you play but it's also how they determine if they give you things.
Every casino has its own scent. They want you to associate that smell with the casino subconsciously. It's like going to the movies and you smell the popcorn and your brain is ready for the experience.
Depends on why I'm there. If there's free drinks while you're gambling, I can turn $20 into a night of drinks and entertainment.
Not sure about western casinos, but this is for Asian casinos. Asians generally subscribe to the supernatural and definitely the superstitions that go along with gambling. casino owners tend to "hire" ghost babies, toyols or kumantongs (aborted baby spirits) to kind of "curse" players into losing. superstitious players will bring candies, toss them under tables so the ghost babies leave them alone because of the candy bribe and let them win.
The employee dining room is an entire buffet and convenience store with good quality at great prices.
In Atlantic City there are a lot of unused stairwells and corridors especially now that the casinos are not as busy. Many homeless people find their way into them and live.
A friend of mine told me about a time they were using a stair well to move furniture and drywall for a remodel. They found two landings with beds and clothing there and one "resident" claimed he had been there over a year.
It's much safer for them than trying to survive in Atlantic City itself (away from the casinos). Honestly one of the scariest places I ever got lost.
I don't know if this is still done but...
Many years ago I worked at Sahara Tahoe and in our paycheck envelopes the management would put 5 "drink tokes" that were good for 5 free drinks. It was introduced as an employee benefit. But you could only use the drink tokes in the casino bars, not in the restaurant or the hotel bars.
Now here's the kicker -
If you CASHED your paycheck at a casino cashier (again not at any of the hotel or restaurant cashiers) they would give you 10 MORE DRINK TOKES.
So what you would have on payday is many of the staff with a bunch or drinks under their belt and thousands of dollars in their pockets wandering around the casino.
It wasn't hard to see what the hotel wanted us to do with the cash...
I wandered down to the basement of MGM from a truck ramp and man, it was like a whole city down there, imagine a massive warehouse with roads and offices and supplies everywhere. The opposite of the glitz going on above it.
Just how much money goes unclaimed/uncollected. I worked in the accounting department at one of the main gaming conglomerates and was tasked with cleaning up their unclaimed property accounts. There were players aka "whales" who'd deposited millions and just forgot about it for years.
Casinos actively work with the police to assist in apprehending persons with warrants.
In my case they also worked with insurance companies, like workers comp. People who claim a disability i.e. they can't walk upstairs or any physical activity from a work-related injury. Surveillance would track said individual to document the physical activity the "disabled" individual.
How much waste there is - tons of food, paper products, stuff like soaps, shampoos, lotions, key packets/folders... It's obscene.
We've got a lot of rats here in Vegas that appreciate it, though.
Anyone getting a job within the casino itself is getting background checked, especially for bad credit and outstanding debts. If you're a guy down on his luck, with some maxed out credit cards and you want a job to get back on your feet, the casino doesn't want you. You're a liability, you're not worth the risk.
Here in Australia, its money laundering
Any gambling wins here are tax-free. So if you've got s**t loads of dirty cash and you need to clean it. Go to any pub, club casino, etc, and start feeding your ill gotten gains into a pokie machine, press collect, and hey presto clean money. You don't even need to play. Just collect tax-free cash.
The amount of people who get their car repossessed. They come to security thinking their car got stolen. The company will call us out of courtesy to let us know they took someone’s vehicle. Can’t pay their car payment but come gamble for hours.
[Self-harm].
Properties go to GREAT lengths to hide these events from the public, given how bad for business it is. But it happens, and quickly taken care of. It's a very open but grim secret amongst casino workers apparently.
One of my dad's best friends died on the floor of the Horeshoe casino in Baltimore. Upon googling his name, I can't find a single mention of it. I imagine deaths that don't involve violence aren't ever really talked about.
My cousin works at a Casino, and depending on what table he is working, requires a uniform/vest/cumber/tie/clip change. There is a large employee room with hundreds of lockers. He shares his with 2 others that usually work different shifts/areas than him. In the locker are 6 hooks (2 for each person), a top cubby with 3 sections (for water bottles, etc), a lower section with 3 sections (for boots/change shoes), and above the footwear section a 3 section 'mini locker' that you bring your own lock, where you put your wallet, valuables, etc that you can't have on your person when you are on the floor. The lockers are large enough to keep your "section" clothes if you need to swap during your shift.
He only very rarely runs into a locker buddy, unless they've picked up an extra shift, or if there is a special event.
He is super short and his locker mates are a very tall man and an average height woman. He thinks locker mates are chosen very specifically to avoid thefts, minimal contact, etc, though he can't prove that.
I worked food distribution for one once. Filling the cigarette machines (this was 2013/14 when smoking was allowed), if you dropped a pack, you had to hold it up in the air to prove you didn't pocket it.
A bunch of years ago, the matriarch of a family jumped overboard because she spent the family’s vacation cash in the casino on our cruise ship.
Secret VIP doors. I used to hang with high rollers, if you wagered over ~$400k+/year at the casino you're given a VIP card to access private rooms and lounges. Randomly next to a slot machine in the wall would be a card reader. Even if you did see it, you might assume it's a staff area but in reality, it was a VIP lounge. One door opens to a huge balcony overlooking the lobby. Full bar, food, and private staff that will take care of you.
My aunt worked at one in Palm Springs, and she said they basically had a room full of extra stools. Old people were sure they were about to hit, and they'd just [pee] and [poop] themselves instead of giving up their machine.
Human trafficking happens a lot in casinos. I very briefly worked at one and a huge part of the training was human trafficking.
Also roaches are everywhere.
(In LV) The sheer amount of data that is collected and analyzed on everything, from the weekend traffic coming from LA, the demographics going to see a concert/show and how that impacts staffing, everything about your slot or table play, down to how the size of the pans used in a buffet relate to food waste.
I worked at a racetrack/casino for a summer and what surprised me the most was how intense the hiring and training process was. i knew there would be a background check and d**g test, but i also had to get certified by my state's racing and games commission. it wasn't a difficult process but it took forever and they took my fingerprints which i thought was weird. it was basically like i was getting security clearance. and everyone who worked there had to do it, even if they were working at the adjoining hotel and never stepped foot into the actual casino.
once i got hired i had to watch a bunch of orientation videos that were required by the state or federal government. one was about recognizing the signs of gambling addiction and when to intervene with guests who showed these signs. like how bartenders have to cut people off. it was pretty obvious that they only showed that video because they had to and they didn't want us to cut off their best customers.
and then there was a powerpoint and quiz mandated by a federal agency (either the fbi, irs, or sec, i can't remember) about fraud and tax evasion. basically, if someone won over a certain amount (i think $5,000?) in one day they had to report their winnings to the irs before they could leave with their money. and there were ways that people tried to game the system to get out of paying taxes. like they would cash out just under the threshold (so if the $5,000 number was correct, they would cash out $4,999) and wait to collect more until the next day. so either they do a transaction before midnight and another after or they take their chips home to bring back later. or they could get other people to collect money for them. so casino staff was supposed to be on the lookout for any sort of shady behavior that could be tax avoidance. and if you had suspicions but no proof, they had a computer program for you to input profiles with any details you could gather (name, physical description, amount won) so security could keep an eye out. i never had to do this since i worked at the racetrack and not the actual casino but it was crazy to me that the dealers and other casino employees had to worry about all that on top of their regular job duties. the pay was pretty good but not enough for investigating financial crimes imo.
As someone that worked in the business for 24 years I can tell you that the employees are talking serious s**t on you in thier breakroom.
Edit: Most casino employees have 'nicknames' for the regulars. They are rarely nice nicknames.
I only have the one experience that likely doesn’t qualify because I still have no idea what was happening or why.
I was collecting water samples at a major casino/hotel for legionella testing - a big deal for any hospitality type industry. They were diligent and had consistently good results - just fyi.
We were down on the floor with the villas. We’d already passed a couple levels of security (the presidential suite was empty, we were given a key and took our time), but when we were halfway down a hallway for the villas, two very large men in suits (I’m a fairly well built man, but I understood my place at that moment) came up and angrily asked for verification and then radioed in our credentials. They very bluntly told hotel security that they were meant to have complete privacy. Once we were cleared they told us to mind our business and move on quickly. A third, very angry, albeit very well dressed giant of a man walked out of a room as we walked by. What I saw was a giant U-shaped sectional sofa with a couple dozen or more elderly men in suits . Behind each man was a beautiful, very scantily dressed, much younger woman. They all stared blankly at me and my coworker as we passed.
We were told to get the f**k out of there in a way that we, with puckered buttholes, listened to. Bizarre experience, but I thought it basically confirmed what I thought about Vegas.
When I worked at a tribal casino for 2 different positions, I went through orientation for each time.
I remember we were told that it was encouraged to befriend the customers who frequent the casino a lot. This includes trying to figure out why they have so much money.
Also, the application to this casino stated that they preferred to hire those who were Native American. I’m a member of the tribe, despite being very white, so idk if I was picked for my papers, but whatever.
Don’t work at a casino, people. They profit off of vices.
How about the design that prevents you from seeing the exits or figuring out how to get out.
If you're on a roll and someone shows up to make a really weird bet that f***s up the flow of your winning, it's probably someone on the casino's payroll that's been sent over to f**k you over so that the casino doesn't have to pay you out.
All too often in blackjack especially if you started a table solo. Not exactly counting cards, but knowing your odds. In comes someone who "pretends" not to know the game or "looks" drunk. Sucks when it happens. I'm not a big spender, but it does kill the mood when the game is not fun anymore.
D**g use! I've so many people do d***s while playing slots. Casino doesn't say anything, they are just happy they are losing their money.
I was an auditor for a casino. They are watching everyone at all times and the cameras can zoom in to see ALL the details of what you’re looking at on your phone, etc. No secrets in casinos!
The amount of money you can find just looking DOWN on the floor.
All sorts of cash. Not just on the casino floor but in the bathrooms and halls too.
I've been to Vegas 7 or 8 times and never saw any dropped money, must have been looking at the wrong floors.
The ATM's don't make it well known that someone's account is empty. Their bartenders also have a magic way of making bills disappear if you've spent a long time at one of their machines.
If a death occurred in a casino or casino hotel resort, the time of death cannot be declared until it is off the property - at the hospital or on arrival.
This spans from peaceful deaths during sleep or after scraping the body off the pool deck after the person jumped from above.
The last thing casinos want is the number of deaths, or rather [self-harm], officially linked to them.
Almost all sounds and music coming out of the slot machines are tuned to the key of C because it’s the most pleasant and least bothersome key.
Nope. In the modern tuning system all keys sound the same. It's just an easy way to make just there's not a huge cacophony in the room created from the sounds of different machines.
At this casino, employees were required to wear badges clearly visible at all times when on the premises, even if not on the clock. Escorting your grandma to the bingo hall after your shift? Badge still better be visible. In the parking lot? Badge still better be visible.
Had a friend that worked one of the ‘party’ pools at a Vegas casino (similar to the former Rehab at Hard Rock). He said that an average of 12 people die a year and if no one notices, they are directed to just leave the person there, i.e. if they are on a float or lounge chair.
I used to work at an Indian casino who was a customer of ours. The tribe takes their cut and basically don't work or even show up. A few of the kids were given token jobs like security but just sit in the booth not actively doing anything. Everyone else who had to pick up the slack hated them. The main board is called the "Tribal Council" and although they had primo parking spots they never showed up when I was there.
I sold to their IT department and as a whole, was shocked how much access they had to all of the systems. We could pull up real time slot machine traffic and payouts. We could access everyone the security cameras picked up. Anybody with a player's card we could track their movements and winnings. Anybody staying at the hotel they knew everything about them (and their spouses).
I worked in a casino for a couple years in Scotland and there’s a whole database on the customers. What you wear, who you talk to, what your hair looks like. Also if we didn’t know your name and we had to put you on the machine next to us, sometimes we’d just call you *twat 1* or *man with awful hair*.
Probably fairly well known but there are plain-clothes security EVERYWHERE. The uniformed security are not the ones you need to worry about.
I used to be a graveyard shift slot technician. A few times we thought dead people were just normal people that fell asleep at their machines because of how late it was. Security would just scoop them up, put them in a wheel chair, and wheel them to a sally port to wait for an ambulance. It must've happened a lot because the staff would be annoyed when you told them someone was sleeping.
Burglaries of the rooms. I was staying at the Four Queens downtown many years ago and my room was burglarized in what was clearly an inside job. Housekeeping had cased the room, they picked which bags had which items at the time, then when the burglary happened later that evening, they ignored much more valuable items in bags that had not arrived until later and were not part of the initial scan. They then tried to extort us after calling later at night. Management would not provide video, call logs, or other data and was totally useless, as, interestingly, was LVPD - never in my life has it been clearer that something was organized crime.
OP got this story from a Wikipedia article about a former casino that closed after it's crime ring was exposed to the media. Redditors constantly lie for karma.
The office in the basement where you can sign over your house for gambling money.
Worked for a Tribal Council, but heard stories from the casino. Typical tribal members drunk and going into the casinos and telling all the white employees they own them. Also at this casino, tribal members received a 4-5 figure check PER MONTH, just for being a member and having a casino. Tons of women showing up claiming to have tribal babies for the $$. And they hated other tribes, especially the poor ones.
The casinos hire researchers to develop scents that not only promote gambling, they make you more likely to lose. Then they pump that sh!t into the ventilation system.
"A scent that makes you more likely to lose." So.. AXE body spray then? /J EDIT: Okay, I'm laughing. I got a notification of an upvote on this post. I checked because BP rarely notifies me of replies. Except when I came back - vote total is back to zero. So somebody out there downvoted me for making fun of the smell of Axe. LOL You do you but -- EWWW! LOL
I work for the division of gaming for my state where I audit casinos. And that's all I can really say. Super not exciting 🎉
My sister works for a company that builds slots for the US and Canada and as one of the posts states above, the machine operates at random. Everything on the screen is just for entertainment. There is no “strategy” that wins. The graphics for bonuses can change at random meaning that they really don’t keep track of when they are ‘due’ to payout. And staying at one machine only increases your chance of winning the same way a stopped clock is right twice a day- the more you play, the more likely you are to hit. That’s just simple probability- not skill or machine programming. Also, the house will always win in the end and casinos band together to split the payouts on the major jackpots so that they are never in the red.
When my wife and I went to Vegas for the first time I was taken aback by the sheer size of the casinos. You might see them in TV shows or movies but it doesn't really prepare you until you're stood there in person. I remember popping to the toilet and left my wife playing a machine. She got up and moved to a different machine when I was gone and it took me a good half an hour to find her again. I can totally see how people can lose hours and hours of their time in those places.
When a casino has a sign saying no cell phones in the sports betting area, they are NOT joking with that. I once stopped to take a call from my mother and didn't realize I was standing just outside of the entrance to the sportsbook. A security guard made me hang up and then chewed me out and threatened to have me arrested. I guess I got lucky that he just chased me away from the area.
That's NOT true . They stopped banning cell phones in sportsbooks over 20 years ago. And if they seen you on one when it wasn't allowed they would simply just tell you no cell phones allowed. HARDLY a big deal
Load More Replies...I say thank you for the information and please give more information to us!!!
I avoid gambling. I prefer to use my entertainment dollars on a sure thing.
Apparently the casino in Cincinnati has not caught up on these type of security protocols. I will never go back to that place again. I was actually winning on a penny or nickel slot and having fun. Obviously not a lot of money but caught the attention of 2 shady people because we were celebrating like we won big, obviously not. Pennies to dollars 🙄They kept following us. When we left there was no security outside the main entrance, just homeless people begging for money. Even our Uber driver was nervous and told us to hurry up. It was daylight. I’ve also been in other casinos at blackjack and roulette tables where men have been pushy to me and no security showed up.(young 30-40s female) This has been Canada and Cleveland. We just won’t go anymore. We were the spend $50 type of people while passing time and nearby. Maybe have a glass of wine. Budgeted a little more for black jack but that was a rarity.
My niece used to work nights at a local casino. One day, the place got raided by the Gaming Commission because of an issue with the tables. Now, the tables are owned by the bank. I suspect that the working conditions are aksi better, as stated labor laws now apply.
I work for the division of gaming for my state where I audit casinos. And that's all I can really say. Super not exciting 🎉
My sister works for a company that builds slots for the US and Canada and as one of the posts states above, the machine operates at random. Everything on the screen is just for entertainment. There is no “strategy” that wins. The graphics for bonuses can change at random meaning that they really don’t keep track of when they are ‘due’ to payout. And staying at one machine only increases your chance of winning the same way a stopped clock is right twice a day- the more you play, the more likely you are to hit. That’s just simple probability- not skill or machine programming. Also, the house will always win in the end and casinos band together to split the payouts on the major jackpots so that they are never in the red.
When my wife and I went to Vegas for the first time I was taken aback by the sheer size of the casinos. You might see them in TV shows or movies but it doesn't really prepare you until you're stood there in person. I remember popping to the toilet and left my wife playing a machine. She got up and moved to a different machine when I was gone and it took me a good half an hour to find her again. I can totally see how people can lose hours and hours of their time in those places.
When a casino has a sign saying no cell phones in the sports betting area, they are NOT joking with that. I once stopped to take a call from my mother and didn't realize I was standing just outside of the entrance to the sportsbook. A security guard made me hang up and then chewed me out and threatened to have me arrested. I guess I got lucky that he just chased me away from the area.
That's NOT true . They stopped banning cell phones in sportsbooks over 20 years ago. And if they seen you on one when it wasn't allowed they would simply just tell you no cell phones allowed. HARDLY a big deal
Load More Replies...I say thank you for the information and please give more information to us!!!
I avoid gambling. I prefer to use my entertainment dollars on a sure thing.
Apparently the casino in Cincinnati has not caught up on these type of security protocols. I will never go back to that place again. I was actually winning on a penny or nickel slot and having fun. Obviously not a lot of money but caught the attention of 2 shady people because we were celebrating like we won big, obviously not. Pennies to dollars 🙄They kept following us. When we left there was no security outside the main entrance, just homeless people begging for money. Even our Uber driver was nervous and told us to hurry up. It was daylight. I’ve also been in other casinos at blackjack and roulette tables where men have been pushy to me and no security showed up.(young 30-40s female) This has been Canada and Cleveland. We just won’t go anymore. We were the spend $50 type of people while passing time and nearby. Maybe have a glass of wine. Budgeted a little more for black jack but that was a rarity.
My niece used to work nights at a local casino. One day, the place got raided by the Gaming Commission because of an issue with the tables. Now, the tables are owned by the bank. I suspect that the working conditions are aksi better, as stated labor laws now apply.
