Las Vegas Strip Workers Share The Wildest Experience Of Their Career
When most people think of Las Vegas, they associate it with partying and gambling. Rightfully so. By no means is it a stereotypical relaxing place to vacation. It's safe to say that most people who jet to Las Vegas do so with the intention of letting loose and having fun, knowing full-well that Sin City is sure to give them a memorable vacation. And with the majority of guests having that mindset, you can only imagine what the people who work on the strip night after night must encounter. Fortunately, you don't have to imagine; the following are stories by Las Vegas strip workers who shared some of the wildest experiences of their career.
45. Bear With It
Plus size stripper in a panda costume. She took off everything except the head. Weirdest thing ever.
44. Not The Brightest Bulb
I worked at a club in Vegas where some guy, blitzed out of his mind, climbed up the fire escape on the side of the building, over the barriers, and then onto the roof that covers the valet area, you know, where taxi cabs and limos pull up to drop people off.
When the bouncers and valet guys shouted at him to come down, he decided that instead of going back the stupid way he came, he would just climb down the fluorescent lightbulbs on the side. Which shattered under his weight, sending him down into the street, cracking open his skull on the pavement. He did NOT die, thank goodness, but his wife screamed about suing the club, we're gonna be in big trouble for this, because her husband is NYPD. Amazing.
43. Eat Your Heart Out
Once, an elderly gentleman had a heart attack at the casino buffet and collapsed on the ground, and other impatient old buffet patrons simply moved around him to continue piling food on to their plate.
42. Risky Business
I'm a student here and working the casinos at night to pay for college. The weirdest stuff would be the hooking up. People get really freaky here. I've seen people doing it in the pool. In the bathroom. Hands under tables. In the elevator. In corners, in the shrubs. In the valet parking lot. The best, though I only heard about it, was a couple who did it right outside the door to their room. Apparently they just couldn't make it all the way in the drunken stupor.
41. Lime Party
These two guys asked for so many limes. I have no clue why they don't grow in the desert. Anyways, their room was trashed beyond imagination and there were even lime remains in the bathtub.
40. Bathroom Behavior
I had a young guy go into cardiac arrest and die in front of me. That was the most tragic. I also had to confront two working girls taking their gates into the women's bathroom. Also, had a woman from Croatia squat and take a poop in the main lobby in the morning.
I won't say which hotel I work at for security reasons. But after moving to and working in this town for four years, nothing surprises me anymore.
39. Crying In A Cab
I was recently in Vegas and asked the cabby who was giving me a ride to the airport for his nightmare stories. He told me that one guy got into his cab and was sobbing uncontrollably while saying, "My wife is going to divorce me, my life is over, I don't know what to do." Cabby replied, "What's wrong?" The guy then proceeded to tell him how he gambled away his life savings, $500,000, in one night. Cabby told me that he couldn't even figure out what to say after that.
38. Craps Table
In the mid-90s, my father was working a prop player in the poker room (plays in card games out of his pocket for the casino on an hourly pay wage) at the Rio.
My dad was working one night playing poker as usual. At one point, there was a smell of fecal matter in the air. As it grew stronger, my dad wondered where it was coming from. Then he noticed the source about two chairs away from him. There was poop running down this lady's legs through her shorts down to the floor and all over the chair.
He immediately called security, who of course asked her why was she pooping at the table and not going to the bathroom. She said she was on a winning streak and didn't want to leave the table. Of course, they forced her to leave the casino. I guess the only streak she left with was the one in her pants.
37. Pool Float
My friend is a day club security guard. He said that one chick got so hammered that she passed out in the two-foot deep pool, face-down. She was surrounded by people who just kicked her around the pool until someone realized she wasn't breathing. Medics were called and CPR administered. Luckily she survived.
36. Naked Jackpot
On surveillance, we saw this man walking across the parking lot carrying a coffee can. As he walked, he started taking his clothes off. Security barely stopped him just inside the casino, stark naked with a coffee can full of quarters. When asked what he was doing, he said, "Jesus told me to gamble naked and I would hit the jackpot."
35. Gambling Your Winnings
I was playing poker one night and suddenly I heard a crash and looked. Fifteen plainclothes security guards tackled an alleged bank robber who was 6'2 and 300 lbs. He supposedly robbed the bank and two hours later went to the casino. The wonders of facial recognition software!
34. What A Knight
My brother worked in the show at Excalibur where you watch knights joust and stuff while everyone eats their meal with their hands. As far as I know, the craziest thing was the time he knocked out one of the main actors in the middle of a performance because he accidentally hit him in the head with his sword (they're dull but they're still heavy).
33. Bartender Bliss
I worked for a casino hotel. Crazy thing was that bartenders were making $15 an hour and $300 in tips per night easily. Saturday nights tips went up as high as $500. This is per bartender of the main lounge where three bartenders were on duty normally. The amount people drink, man...
32. Clean-Up Crew
I currently work the night shift at Mandalay Bay. I like it because it's often quiet and I don't have to worry about the clients. There have been times, though, where we would go into rooms to refresh and find homeless folks sleeping under tables and airwall pockets, which often leads us finding piles of poop on the floor.
On one occasion, I walked into a room and found two very old people doing it. They noticed us walk in the room but didn't care, so we let them finish like good employees and then security escorted them out afterward. If you're coming to Vegas on a business trip and decide to get freaky late at night in a public room on the convention floors, always expect someone to be watching.
31. KFC VS. UFC
My uncle is security at a strip club in Vegas. One night they had a UFC amateur fighter who had a few too many drinks. He refused to leave and was getting kind of violent.
My uncle (not big at all, just good with people and talking) approached the UFC guy. "Who do you think you're dealing with? I'm a UFC champion." Blah blah blah, UFC this UFC that -- you get the point. My uncle says, "UFC? I eat KFC EVERY DAY!" Apparently, the guy just stood there very confused and left. Came back the next day and apologized and told my uncle what he said was so funny and strange that he couldn't comprehend it and just left.
30. Never Touch The Cards
This is a second-hand story from a lovely lady who was a dealer in Vegas in one of the crappy casinos on Freemont Street. She was dealing at a blackjack table where you can do one of those crazy side bet things on certain rare hand combinations to get a bonus jackpot. Anyways, one guy hit it and won $35,000. This was a big deal and he grabbed his cards off the table to show his friends. The casino invalidated the play because apparently, that was against the rules. He did not get his winnings and was escorted out crying. Seemed unfair to me.
29. Hazard To Themselves
I've seen a man inject himself in the leg with insulin, and then leave the syringe sticking out of his leg for an hour because he won a jackpot when he injected himself so therefore it must be a lucky charm. I have seen people soil themselves because they didn't want to leave the table/slot machine. I've seen people pass out after having sat chain-smoking at a slot machine for 36 hours straight, and I've seen other customers get mad because the paramedics interrupted their winning streak. And I've seen a man die of a heart attack at a poker table, and then watched as the rest of the players try to steal his winnings before security could get there.
28. Walking The Line
I heard this from a bartender in the casino at the LV Hilton. There was a couple playing the progressive slot machine where you can play three lines at once by paying triple. (Essentially, let’s you gamble faster). Well, the husband goes to the bathroom and the wife takes over the machine and hits the button for “Play 1 Line” instead of “pay 3 lines.” The jackpot combo (triple 7’s or whatever) comes up on the top line meaning the didn’t win the $200,000 progression because she only played one line. Husband comes back and she shows him. This was 20-30 years ago so $200,000 was a lot of money back then. Husband proceeds to beat the crap out of the wife right on the casino floor. He ended up being arrested.
27. Celine Dion And Cheeseburgers
This is more of a funny story than crazy. I was working as a security guard a Louis Vuitton in the Forum Shops at Caesar's 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 guys 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 Caesar's 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.
26. Wheelin' And Dealin'
I was at my city's biggest casino with my friend and we were playing roulette. An old gentleman came over in a wheelchair with another younger man pushing him. The old man continuously laid out thousands of dollars and placed it around the table. He'd lose it all and just throw another wad of cash out. The young man just stood behind him silently the whole time. Not crazy, just a little weird. I'm not sure if the young guy was a caretaker or a relative or what but that old man must have lost $10,000 in 15 minutes. It was almost like he was laundering money.
25. Lost In Five Hands
I had a customer lose about $10,000. He's walking to the ATM to get more money and the dealers let him know that there's a $500 max withdraw on the ATM but he can do a credit card advance at the cage for a lot more.
He comes back with $20,000 and loses that in five hands.
24. A Smashing Time
I work as a fountain worker at a casino at the south end of the strip and a guy and his significant other had an argument and smashed a beer bottle on the ground while waiting in line. He stormed out as our hostess called security. We found shards of glass in our food and display and alcohol was splashed on everybody. The casino I work at has our own police so they found him quickly. I'm almost certain he was banned. Overall, customers are pretty much the same everywhere else, but they're reasoning for better service is because they're staying in a 5-star hotel when it's really 3-stars but alright.
23. Party Pooper
I worked at a party pool last summer and after a day of high heat and much too much alcohol, my guest decided to pop a squat and poop in the back of the cabana he had rented. That was a fun day. Lots of the crazy stuff I've seen involves violence mostly. Crazy fights that end in a bloody mess, or men who go crazy in a fit of rage when they lose more than their life savings on a night of betting. It's a crazy city to grow up in.
22. Under The Table
My first month on the floor, and I was dealing blackjack at a table with only one man. Something was a bit off with him, and he seemed a bit distracted, but I carried on a normal conversation with him. Right as my 30 minutes is up, and I'm getting tapped off to go to my next table, security shows up. My pit boss pulls me aside before I hit my next table and says the guy I was dealing to was MASTURBATING UNDER THE TABLE THE WHOLE TIME I HAD BEEN DEALING TO HIM. They didn't want him to run, so they had called security and had me keep dealing. The pit boss should've tapped me out and dealt to him himself.
21. Dedicated To The Slots
This very old woman was playing slots. She was in a wheelchair and had an oxygen cannula. She was clearly not there by herself, her family was nearby. Well, she hits it BIG, and I mean BIG. Bells are ringing, lights flashing, the entire room knows something big just happened. Casino staff and personnel come swarm her, already getting out the paperwork for her to sign. The bells and lights are still going nuts. A crowd is gathering. She's clearly not able to handle all this, so her family steps in, and they start talking with the casino staff. The crowd just gets bigger, people start taking photos, and the bells and lights are still going nuts. Quietly...off to the side, the old woman wheels her chair outside the crush of people and starts putting money into another slot machine. She doesn't care if she won big, she just wants to keep pumping money into the machine. She's not oblivious to what's going on, but she clearly doesn't care.
20. Bloody Hell
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 girlfriend booze until she was sick. She threw up on my table and aimed it at the chips. He said, "oh my god, babe what the freak!?" Grabbed about $6,000 in bloody mary/vomit covered chips and made a dash toward the door only to be clotheslined and tased before he passed the buffet. I got to go home after that. I heard nothing else happened that night anyway.
19. Gotta Go
I was a bellman for many years and I'm still in the industry today. About 15 years ago, I was on the 19th floor of my hotel coming back from a front and as I turned the corner into the elevator lobby to go down I stumbled upon a hooker taking an enormous dump on the floor. She just looked at me and said "Damn...I just had'ta go!" People are freaking disgusting.
18. Morning Pick Me Up
Working in the morning at the Starbucks in the Excalibur food court on the 5 am shift and some guy comes up to the counter asking for water. He was holding a bottle of pills so surely he was going to take some medicine. Well, he takes his medicine at our hand out window along with a little drug snorting station. Credit card, dollar bills, and the pills crushed and laid out. I wasn't sure what he was doing and asked my co-worker to look over to confirm. We called security and he was still there. Security pulled him away with him getting more pissed off that he couldn't finish than being arrested. There was a bunch of vacant tables but he chooses our hand out counter where we called the drinks out.
17. Tuna Service
A friend of my Father's is one of those casino hosts. They've known each other for years. He's the guy that handles all the high rollers. Many of them would demand really strange things. One guy used to demand that he have a whole case of canned tuna fish in water, and a whole case of bottled water in his suite when he arrived. Also, some rich people like to get really drunk, lose a bunch of money, then turn around and attempt to sue the casino because the casino kept serving them alcohol, and that's why they lost so much money.
16. DJ Confessions
I am a DJ for a lot of the larger casinos. I've seen some stuff but the stuff that sticks out: Saw a group of mentally challenged folk come in and proceed to get messed up and make fun of their buddy who was in a wheelchair. Saw a guy knock a kid out on the floor then come back five minutes later and fought a bunch of security guards and won. So many escorts. People just passed out in the hallways because they didn’t get a room and the hotel was sold out. Huge parties in the lobbies of the upper floors.
15. Sweet Revenge
I know a casino cocktail hostess that worked for 30 years in the business. Whenever a player treated her badly and left very little or no tip, she'd put Visine in their drink.
14. A Bad Hand
I had gotten off work at my casino and wanted to play at a local casino. I'm playing the slots when a man runs into the casino and starts screaming that he got hit by a car. He goes on a rampage, throwing drinks at bartenders, and punches the glass on several machines. This completely messed up his hands. By the time hotel security tackled him, he was passed out from blood loss. Meanwhile, the girl next to me gets six out of seven quick-hits while this is going on for $1,800.
13. Happens All The Time
I worked for dispatch for a chain of taverns out here. Basically, our job was to get calls from the bartenders concerning whatever issue they were having and email the issue to the correct people so they could deal with it. It was my second night working graveyard when I get a call that tested my abilities to be professional. Me: “Thank you for calling dispatch, _______ speaking!” Bartender: “Yeah I need maintenance and security here right away.” Me: “Alright, ma’am. I can definitely do that for you. Can you give me the details of the issue?” Bartender: “Well sweetheart someone’s gone and pooped all over the gaming floor AGAIN.” Me: “..oh...” I mentioned it to my coworker and she just casually goes “oh it happens all the time. You’ll get used to it.” We used to get “bio-clean up” calls at least four times a week, and I would sit and watch our maintenance guys fight over who had to deal with it.
12. Picture This
One night I'm dealing Blackjack to this lady. She pulls out a picture frame of her son, puts it on the table, and says it's for good luck. We're playing and she's losing horribly, doesn't seem like the picture is working. We're talking back and forth and I asked her if her son was in college or if he was working. She replies that her son is dead. Before I can even say I'm sorry, she says yeah my son is dead that's why I'm here trying to win money for his funeral. What!!!???
11. Lights Out
Worked at the city center, a few stations and town square. People used to unscrew the garage elevator bulbs to have private time from the cam in the elevator. Townsquare has a blue martini and few other bars on the second floor and shopping on first floor. When people got sick, some would vomit onto unsuspecting customers.
10. Spin Zone
A friend of mine was a dealer in a casino. She told me about a regular gambler who came in. He was wealthy, owned several restaurants but lost it all gambling. She said the last time she saw him, he came in and put all his chips on red on a Roulette wheel...which came up black. The guy just stood there and was trying to figure out what had happened. Everyone was watching him as he picked up another guys drink and poured the pint into the Roulette wheel. He then turned around and picked up another guys drink but fortunately, the manager stopped him. The manager told him he had just had a rough night and they would comp him a free taxi home. The guy said, “I haven’t got a home.”
9. Alternating Duties
Had two guys come in to play a progressive slot which was to hit before $25,000. They played as a tag team, one would eat and sleep then relieve the other to do the same. They played for almost 48 hours straight and did end up winning it, don't know how much of their own money they spent doing this but must have been worth it.
8. Shake A Leg
I work in the drop/count team department at my casino. I walk the floor and stop occasionally to fill ticket redemption machines and some miscellaneous customer service. While I was waiting for the machine to turn back on I started scanning the floor because I love people watching, especially at a casino. So I spot this old dude walking towards the center of the gaming floor and he just stops and freezes for 30 seconds. He starts walking away with a weird strut and then shakes his left leg until a piece of poop falls out of his pant leg. He walked away like nothing even happened. What a guy...
7. Not Dependable
I worked at a Casino for about a year. The worst was the day I realized how many people wear diapers while they're playing the slots. I was walking across the floor to lunch with a colleague, and we saw a pissy diaper that had been discarded in a (relatively) empty stack of slots. As I learned working there, some gambling addicts piss and poop their pants rather than stop losing money for five minutes to go relieve themselves like adults.
6. Playing 'Til The End
Two weeks ago I did CPR on a guy who was playing a slot machine with his wife next to him. He collapsed, I show up and start to work him. Wifey continues playing as if nothing is happening. I had to ask her to stop playing and move out of the way so my guys could jump in and help. This has happened more times than I would like to admit. She had the freaking nerve to snap at me for it.
5. Fire Night
Had a guy catch on fire. Some jerk didn't want to waste the second half of his cig so he threw it in his coat pocket. The rest should go without saying.
4. Monetary Distractions
A friend of mine worked as a dealer. One time she busted someone for using a fake $100 note. She made lots of small talk to keep the guy there until the police came. As for me...the craziest thing I saw were two of my family members who literally squatted at these poker machines all night to get the jackpot. The amusing thing was, the amount they got didn't cover the amount they put in, so it was rather pointless!
3. Free For All
I work in a casino, but not a dealer, just in the food court. The nicest/most unexpected thing anyone has done was come up with a $500 coupon, got $30 worth of food and told me to pay for everyone behind them. I ended up staying at my register for half an hour just going, "Hey, come here! I've got this coupon someone didn't use all of, what will you have? Uh huh, okay you're good? Have a nice day." All my coworkers got some food, and I got a $10 burger and a $6 shake just because we weren't busy enough to give all that out (for the record coupons in my casino can't be partially used and put on your player's card or redeemed for cash, if you don't use it it's wasted).
2. Dead Serious
I'm training to become a dealer, and here's a story our trainer told us. He was dealing while some old guy was playing Roulette. At some moment, the old guy died and fell with his head on the table. So freaked out, the dealer asked the inspector what to do, and the inspector told him to just carry on. So he carried on, and the other gamblers played on, reaching out over the dead guy's body to place bets. After some time, they realized that what they were doing was pretty messed up, so the game finally stopped before the body was taken away.
1. The Apologist
My ex was a supervisor at Bellagio so I used to hang out there all the time. One time I saw a dude just peeing on a wall out in the open. He looked up at everyone and said in a drunken mumble, "I'm sorry everyone."
