45 Times Casino And Hotel Workers Witnessed The Craziest And Saddest Things On The Job

Ok I used to work for the legal department of a large Strip casino. Until I started working there, I had no idea that a huge number of people visit Las Vegas for one reason only – to sue us. It is STAGGERING the things they try to pull. One woman shows up in town with her 5 year old son, and breast feeds him publicly in the front desk area. Because of the age of the child, people are freaking out, so she is asked to nurse privately. She then tells our casino she will sue us.

Now, all the lawyers on the Strip are friends (even with lawyers in the “competing” casinos, because they are trying to keep this place together). After this incident, we notify all the other attorneys on the Strip, because people like this have a habit of hopping from casino to casino with the same con. Sure enough, about 30 minutes after we send out the warning, we hear she is hitting another casino with the same c**p, pulls out her b***s and threatens to sue. She leaves that one and tries to enter a third, but security wouldn’t even let her in, as a description of her and her con was already out.

This is just one wonderful example of the type of people that visit Las Vegas!

My mom works as a d****r at a casino and has told me multiple stories of grown men wearing adult diapers at the table so they don’t have to leave to use the restroom.

This is more of a funny story than crazy. I was working as a security guard a Louis Vuitton in the Forum Shops at Caesars Palace. One day this nice old lady comes up and she's eating a cheeseburger, so I kindly tell her that there's no food allowed in the store. She smiled at me and said "No worries." She proceeded to finish her cheeseburger in front of the store and chatting with these two huge dude in leather jackets she was hanging out with. The Louis Vuitton manager at that point runs over to me and whispers to me. "WHY DID YOU NOT LET HER IN???" I told her I'm just following store policy, and the lady didn't get mad or anything so I wasn't sure what the big deal was. "That's Celine Dion!" I looked at her. She had no makeup and was dressed like one of us commoners but sure enough it was Celine Dion, the two big dudes were her body guards. She's a headliner at the Caesars and was on a shopping break. She proceeded to enter the store, randomly grab just about everything that tickled her fancy and spent $200,000 in matter of 15 minutes.

Going to take this in another direction despite how sad it is. Been in the business for ten years. My first casino had a racetrack as well and it was Kentucky Derby weekend, always one of the busiest. It was hot as hell that Saturday and I was a 6pm start. We had to park in an overflow section so valet could use the normal employee parking area. I was walking towards the emploee entrance with a few other dealers and we heard a couple dogs barking. After a quick look around we found an SUV with its windows up and these yellow labs barking their heads off. What kind of dickbag leaves their dogs in their car on this kind of day to go gamble? We all looked at each other but one of the dealers was already on the phone to security with a look like he could k**l some one. I worked in Pennsylvania where the state police has an office on site at every casino. They were out to meet us in less then five minutes. They surrounded the vehicle and waited for the dogs to approach one of them. Once the dogs were towards the back of the vehicle, one of the troopers took out a club and smashed the driver’s window. They unlocked the doors and got the dogs out. Once the dogs were clear they proceeded to break all of the other windows as well.

By the time I hit the floor I already started hearing stories about what had happened. Some being even more exaggerated than what I saw but close enough to the truth. As far as the owners, they were pulled off the blackjack game they were playing and arrested. If you are arrested for any crime at a casino in PA you are placed on the state’s exclusion list and can not enter a PA casino ever again or will be charged with tresspassing.

Grandmother, mother, and daughter heading to the casino by car from 2 hours away. Mother had a postcard to get a free cast iron pan for showing up. Daughter is more than 8 months pregnant. One hour away from the casino daughter starts to have labor pains. Mother won’t stop and take her to the hospital, she’s gotta have that ($10) pan. They arrive at the casino an hour before the promotion was going to start. Mother raises all hell trying to get her pan but the workers for the promo haven’t arrived yet. Daughter ends up having to be transported by ambulance to the hospital. All over a $10 pan.

During my 8 hour shift a gentleman won $15,000 on a slot machine. Punched out at end of shift and had the next two days off. Returned to work after my weekend to find the man still sitting at the same slot machine. He had been there for 2+ days losing $15,000.

Yay! I can comment on this!!! I worked at a casino that opened a few years ago and I remember during orientation they were talking about : "We're different than other casinos, our windows open." By the time I left a year ago, security confirmed 4 s*icides from room balconies. Open patios/windows aren't a good idea for people with a gambling a*******n.

I worked at a casino as a d****r through college. A lot of incidents were pretty sad, especially with regulars that you liked. One regular would tell me about his middle school age kids, and then I would realize the next week or so later that he was missing their school plays/recitals etc because he was at the tables. I remember working an overnight one Christmas Eve and begging him to go home when 6/7am rolled around because his kids would be up and opening presents.

Other times just people screaming at you for “stealing” their mortgage payments from them that month. Then seeing them back again the next day.

Former valet at a casino. The amount of daily regulars who drove barely functioning vehicles full of trash, roaches, and rats who would actually valet their car and go gamble away any money they had to their name was honestly depressing.

The saddest I remember was a 90+ year old lady who drove a 91 corolla and when we got in her car we realized she had no power steering fluid at all and her steering wheel would barely turn. I have no earthly idea how her frail arms could turn it. We went and bought her some before she left that evening.

In general, people who come for the first time and are super nice and friendly, they don't care about winning or losing much just came to have fun. They come back a few more times, then after a few years they're regulars that don't smile anymore, they don't laugh, they don't count their wins, just their losses, and sweat every comp point they earn and act like gambling is their job now and the focus of their life.
I've seen more than one person have this happen to them. The other saddest thing is when a regular stops coming in and their spouse comes out and tells us they passed, we're almost family with some of our regulars and it hurts to get that news.

We used to have a woman who would be on the blackjack tables for five days/nights straight. Her husband would call and tell her that her kids wanted her home. Her boss actually came to the casino to try and get her to leave, she was missing work. I don’t know what happened to her but she’s probably ruined her life.

We also had a few regulars commit s*****e and a few go to jail.

I did casino security for 3 years before I became a police officer. Had a Code M (medical) early early one morning, around 4 or 5am. Old guy in his 80’s passed out and fell out of his chair, wife sitting next to him. I was the first to get to him, did a quick assessment and found he didn’t have a pulse, immediately started CPR. The old lady looked over and said “oh he does this all the time, don’t worry about him.” Between chest compressions, I told her he wasn’t breathing and she just kept playing her a lot machine. She didn’t miss a spin even when the paramedics took him away. I saw her again the next night and asked how he was doing. With the straightest face ever, she said, “oh he never woke up. I’m sure he’s in a freezer by now”... and went right back to the same machine she was playing the night before.

There were these two middle aged Greek or Cypriot ladies who were ALWAYS on the slot machines, every day when I started my shift they were they and they were there when I finished 10 hours later. And still there in the same clothes the next day oftentimes. They were SUPER nice and always polite to the staff. One day they hit the jackpot and win big, I think it was either £15k or £45k, it was a good few years ago now.

Everyone was overjoyed for them - except the managers obviously. Well the managers then gave them free meals at the restaurant and an open bar tab until every single penny of that money was clawed back into the casino.

A bit late since there's been so many comments, but nevertheless I got something.
Not a worker, but had an uncle addicted to gambling.


Worst thing that happened was he used all of his money, lost his job from it, begged for more money which let to him going to the casino again to spend it. Then he went homeless, and any money there went to gambling again. A vicious cycle where he slept on park benches and spent any dime on gambling at the nearest casino. Found out all this one day when he walked by my house with a huge beard, looking like he hadn't showered or eaten in a long time.


Good ending: Eventually his mom (my grandmother) took him back in when he begged for a place to stay, I now live with him, he works a full time job with nice pay, and doesn't drink or gamble anymore. Not the best at managing his money at times, but it's safe to say he's far from where he started.

A woman approximately mid 30’s dancing her a*s off on the dance floor of the night club, and suddenly dropped dead. I watched her die.

Or the time a VIP booth was packed, drinks flowing. Everybody picking on the guy that passed out. End of night comes and they tell us he is going to need a wheelchair (not uncommon). Guy was dead a good hour.

The deaths always bug me. Casinos get a treatment similar to airports. The unspoken rule is to treat them as if alive until they get off the premises. Even if they are an hour dead. The goal is to get them out as quickly as possible without freaking out the patrons.

New Years was always stressful. It was never a question IF someone would die that night. It was a question of how many. A good year would be one. One year we had 4.

Not Vegas but :

* Celebrity jerking it under card table.

* Large man throwing pit boss over autoroulette.

* Lady having heart attack, falls onto roulette table. Husband continues placing bets around her.

* Chinese walkout after one dude got banned. Literally some dude in his 20s walks in, yells something in mandarin, 98% of Chinese punters stand up, leave, and don't return for weeks.

Before I got into aviation I used to deal cards at a casino in northern California. A lot of people had ways of trying to cheat the casino. One night on graveyard shift a couple came in and the boyfriend kept feeding his gf booze until she was sick. She threw up on my table and aimed it at the chips. He said "omfg babe wtf!?" Grabbed about 6k in bloody Mary/vomit covered chips and made a dash toward the door only to be clotheslined and tazed before he passed the buffet. I got to go home after that. I heard nothing else happened that night anyway.

I don't work in a casino, but live near Atlantic City. Seeing unattended children playing near the entrance to the casino floor where children aren't allowed.

You brought your kids to a casino where kids aren't allowed...and just...*left* them in a hallway.

I wasn't a casino employee, but I was an EMT in a certain beach town on the East Coast that could be described as bargain bin Vegas. On a given shift we would probably field 3 or 4 casino calls, more in the summer. It was pretty soul crushing. Most calls were alcohol related or obvious slip-and-fall scams, but occasionally we would happen upon some real tragedies. S*****e attempts, ODs, rapes, assaults happened with depressing frequency. This one sticks with me the most though-

One day we had a call for a woman in her 70s sitting at the slots experiencing chest pain around 2 am. She refused treatment despite being in bad shape. We pleaded and begged, and even had the on-call cardiologist talk to her on the phone, but she was "on a streak" and wouldn't hear it. An hour later we were back doing CPR; she died right there in front of the same slot machine, with a receipt for $7 in winnings. Super f****d. The amount of employees we had to treat for exhaustion or diabetic related emergencies due to them not having enough breaks to manage their blood sugars was also super f****d. F**k that town.

I've worked at a hotel in Vegas and so much has happened that I could write a book...

Quite a few people met someone and decided to get married the same night, while totally drunk, ~~not realizing that a Vegas marriage is an actual legally binding marriage.~~ One morning I had a guy ask me if I knew a good annulment lawyer, because he married a girl from another country that was out for a green card and now she refused to have a divorce. Edit 2: It turns out he wasn't actually married after all and just thought he was. I was actually confused by the number of guests who thought they were seriously married. You have to go to the courthouse to make it official, so luckily this doesn't really happen like the myth.

A guy brought a different "little person" pr*stitute to his room for 2 nights in a row.

A guy did some m**h, started playing music obnoxiously loudly and when told to stop started yelling anti-Semitic slurs at the manager. Refused to leave so we called the cops and he had a warrant out for his arrest.

A 70-year old man who used to run a strip club started pimping out some of the female guests to the male guests. He would find ladies who wanted some extra cash and match them up with male guests who didn't want to have to go out on the street for a hookup for hire. At one point the old man said I could have a free ride in return for not telling my boss. I didn't take up his offer and I told my boss...

A staff member was working as a d**g dealer and got multiple guests hooked on bath salts. It was not a good time.

Someone who was in an auto accident after driving while high freaked out that they had killed someone and committed s*****e on the sidewalk near our building. I was the only one who knew how to record surveillance video onto a CD for the cops, so I had to watch it. When I showed it to one of the Vegas cops and said I burned a CD for them, the cop simply said, "Cool, thanks!" Later I was talking with a s******r who worked nearby who brought up the s*****e and said she was pissed because the cops blocked the driveway for the strip club and it totally ruined her Saturday night profits. It was one of the most Vegas conversations I've ever had.

Some cops investigating a s*****e of one of our former guests decided they would pin it on me to see if I knew anything about a secret life he was leading. Luckily my co-workers talked the cop out of it because they were worried it would scar me for life or something.

I had a girl get drunk and then go behind the reception desk while I was working and try to make out with me and convince me to join another co-worker in a gang bang.

Like I said, I could write a book. Las Vegas is the kind of city where people go to do the craziest things they've ever done in their life.

Edit:

I forgot one of my favorites. A guest came up to me while I was working and complained that people were doing lines of c*****e in the lobby. I go to the lobby and sure enough, there is a group of people from South America doing lines off the table in the lobby. Not only that, but it's only noon. I tell them that they can't snort c*****e here and they seem annoyed. "What do you mean? This is Vegas! Everything is legal here!" I reply that, no, c*****e is not legal in Las Vegas and they seem genuinely surprised. They continue, "Come on, this is Las Vegas! Here, do a line with us!" I reiterate that d***s are still illegal in Vegas and that they have a private hotel room that they can do c*****e in if they really want to. I still find it incredibly funny that my job entails telling guests to please not do lines of c*****e at noon in broad daylight in front of other guests.