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What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas! And what happens specifically in the casino stays between you, the dealer and everyone who has access to the security cameras. Films and TV shows often portray casinos as wild places full of debauchery and opportunities to earn thousands. But the reality is that the owners of these casinos often work hard to portray 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 that 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 any money into a slot machine!
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#1
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.
sturmwesen 3 days ago
S****y that they have to do it, great that they do it. ...even if it's propably partly for cleaning their image
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#2
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.
#3
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.
#4
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.
#5
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.
Damned_Cat 3 days ago
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.
#6
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.
#7
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.
UpupaEpops 3 days ago
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.
#8
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?
#9
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.
Stephanie A Mutti 3 days ago
"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.
#10
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.
#11
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.
Katie Allen 3 days ago
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.
#12
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.
Robert Cosgrove 3 days ago
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.
#13
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!
#14
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'.
#15
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.
Rinso The Red 3 days ago
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.
#16
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.
#17
The employee dining room is an entire buffet and convenience store with good quality at great prices.
#18
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.
detective miller's hat 3 days ago
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.
#19
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...
#20
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.
#21
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.
#22
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.
#23
Casinos actively work with the police to assist in apprehending persons with warrants.
Gabby M 3 days ago
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.
#24
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.
#25
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.
#26
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.
#27
[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.
#28
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.
#29
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.
Geoffrey Scott 3 days ago
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.
#30
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.
What do you think ?
ElfVibratorGlitter 3 days ago
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 🎉
Shane S 3 days ago (edited)
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.
Bill Evs 3 days ago
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.
ElfVibratorGlitter 3 days ago
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 🎉
Shane S 3 days ago (edited)
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.
Bill Evs 3 days ago
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.
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