Casino secrets are tricky to come by. As notoriously secretive establishments, casinos have developed all types of clever tricks for ensuring game security and hiding unflattering truths from guests, especially in hotspots like Las Vegas and Atlantic City.
When the internet was asked, “What is something that happens at casinos that is hidden from the public?” insiders divulged the casino secrets that your card dealer will never spill.
You won’t believe what goes on behind the scenes:
1. Huge sums of unclaimed money
“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.”
2. People dying
“I knew a couple who worked the cage and the floor at a Hard Rock, and they used to tell me stories [about people dying at the casino]. When they found someone dead at a machine, they’d quietly get them into a wheelchair, put a blanket over them, and roll them out the back to a waiting ambulance.
“They also talked about how often people would [unalive] themselves. They found a lot of people dead in their bathtub in various ways.”
3. The hidden armory
“Major casinos in Vegas have an armory room, stockpiles of weapons and tactical gear.
“[I] 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. Odds say penny slots aren’t worth it
“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. 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.”
5. Underground cities and logistics
“My ex worked for MGM for a while, and she hooked me up with a comped room at [New York-New York] when I came to visit family. She met me at the check-in and then asked if I wanted to see her office.
“She took me through a door, down some steps, and then through several corridors, passing by laundries, cafeterias, locker rooms, offices, storage, etc. She would point out all of these different areas and points of interest along the way, and all I could think of ‘where are we? Are we even in the same hotel?’
“We eventually go up some stairs and out a door, and we’re now at the valet at Aria next to where her office is located. Granted, we’ve only walked a few properties over, but it’s simply unbelievable how much activity there is underneath those hotels.”
6. Piles of extra chairs
“My aunt worked at [a casino] 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 [relieve] themselves instead of giving up their machine.”
No bathroom breaks for avid gamblers? I’d think twice about touching the floor of a casino.
7. Private games for VIPs
“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.'”
I don’t want to know what the buy-in for a game of blackjack or poker costs in those secret enclaves!
8. Elaborate locker design
“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 two others [who] usually work different shifts [or] areas than him.
“In the locker are six hooks (two for each person), a top cubby with three sections, a lower section with three sections, and above the footwear section, three 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.”
9. How casinos manipulate people into playing
“Some casinos add scents to the air (they do not pump in extra oxygen 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,” wrote one person sharing casino secrets.
10. Abandoned children
Would you leave your kids behind to gamble?
According to one insider sharing casino secrets, many parents do, saying that kids are left “not on the [casino] floor, but gift shops or food courts. It’s pretty sad.”
11. Personal security for winners
“If you win a good size of money, you can request that casino security escort you to a spot either in the casino or not far from it, and they will. Also, casinos can wire money or do other forms of payment for large sums of money if you ask. There is never a reason really to walk around with $10k+ by yourself to any place in Vegas.”
12. Crimes
“The father of a friend of mine was [robbed and killed] 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 five 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.”
This article was written and syndicated by What the Fab.
Elise Armitage is an entrepreneur and founder of What The Fab, a travel + lifestyle blog based in California. At the beginning of 2019, Elise left her corporate job at Google to chase her dreams: being an entrepreneur and helping women find fabulous in the everyday. Since then, she’s launched her SEO course Six-Figure SEO, where she teaches bloggers how to create a passive revenue stream from their website using SEO. Featured in publications like Forbes, Elle, HerMoney, and Real Simple, Elise is a firm believer that you can be of both substance and style.
