Question of the Day - 08 March 2013

Yes, it is indeed true that the long-gone Mint hotel-casino downtown offered a behind-the-scenes tour, billed as "World Famous," back in the late '60s and through the 1970s (we were unable to find details of the exact dates between which it operated) and we actually found one of the certificates given to those who took the tour currently for sale on eBay. What's more, not only did this happen in the "olden days," but that's the only era during which it could conceivably have taken place, when casinos were privately owned and there was a lot less red tape governing their rules and regulations, particularly when it comes to matters of security.

While in a previous incarnation as a documentary maker, the current writer was granted access to film on more than one occasion in the surveillance and count rooms at the Hard Rock, which historically was always one of the more media-friendly properties, no members of the public are granted such a privilege -- not even fellow members of staff at any casino are permitted to enter casino surveillance rooms, which have separate entrances and (at least in theory) an anonymous staff unknown to their co-workers, for obvious reasons.

Still, back in the day it was all a little looser, and on more than one occasion QoD readers have written in to share their personal memories of this free tour that Del Webb's Mint offered for a number of years:

• "Many, many years ago, The Mint gave tours as described in today's question [Ed: 3/9/2009, to be located in the archives, which focused on similar but much more limited behind-the-scenes access granted to prospective dealers, and members of the public, at both the Sundance -- now Fitzgeralds downtown -- and the Cal Neva in Reno.] Visitors were in fact taken up to the catwalk area. I know, I took the tour once."

• "I took this tour in 1970," wrote another reader, who also alerted us to several photographs in the UNLV Lied Library Collections at UNLV Special Collections that relate to the tour, some of which you'll find reproduced below:

  0002 One-armed bandits -- repair room where each slot machine in the Mint Hotel in downtown Las Vegas is repaired on a 24-hour basis. This is another stop on the famous "Behind the Scenes" tour offered free of charge by the Mint Hotel.

  0003 Coin counting room – millions of coins pass through this man's hands every day and are counted automatically by a huge machine, which is one of the unusual sights a person sees while taking the free "Behind the Scenes" tour offered by the Mint Hotel in downtown Las Vegas.

  0004 "Eye in the sky" – unusual view from atop the Mint Hotel casino floor as seen through one-way glass used for security purposes by the Mint Hotel downtown Las Vegas. This is one of many interesting stops on the "Behind the Scenes" tour offered free of charge by the Mint Hotel."

• Here's another reference we found online from the journal/scrapbook of a member of the United States Coast Guard named Dean Rowe, who evidently took the tour as part of a conference schedule in 1968:

  "December 6-8: District Conference hosted by Division IX at the glamorous Sands Castaway Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada. Fifteen workshops and two general assemblies. Special meetings for Division Captains, Vice Captains, Flotilla Commanders, Secretaries, and Treasurers. Special activities included a tour of Hoover Dam, a Lake Mead Cruise and a look behind the scenes at the Mint Casino.

• And last, but by no means least, here's some awesome feedback we received from another reader on the eve of this answer running, plus images of the brochure he received when he took the tour:

  "Just read your question for tomorrow on The Mint behind-the-scene tours. I took this tour back in the late '70s when I first moved to Las Vegas from the Midwest. It was pretty amazing and what I remember most is the eye-in-the-sky part, where they took a small group upstairs to a area over looking all of the casino games. It did not really look that safe* and there's no way would they do this today -- the insurance premium would be too high Then we went to a room where they had a slot machine encased in plastic and we got to play it and see how it ran, prior to walking into the count room, where we watched them count money. See attachments for a look at a brochure of the tour."

*"Catwalks" were the original "surveillance rooms," prior to the invention of security cameras. Here's an excerpt from a previous QoD on the subject, penned by a former casino-surveillance agent:

"In the 1950s and '60s, surveillance cameras had yet to be invented. Thus, they were non-existent in the casino pits and slot floors. The way casino surveillance agents kept an eye on the bouncing bankroll was via catwalks -- dark, dingy, dangerous, and asbestos-coated ceiling walk spaces directly above the casino, where wooden planks set across steel beams allowed access to seasoned cheats (who now worked for the casino) to oversee the table games. If these observers could see a slot bank or two, that was considered a bonus, even though everyone back then knew that you couldn’t cheat a slot machine (how wrong they were!).

"The mid-'70s saw the advent of the (surveillance) camera. Though they were costly, untrusted by most, and unsightly to all, the concept caught on. By the mid-‘80s, cameras were no longer an alternative to catwalks: The Gaming Control Board mandated the use of surveillance cameras in casino areas."

And, in a different answer, the same author confirmed our reader's suspicion that these catwalks were far from safe, noting at least one death he knew of as the result of an agent falling from the structure, but that's another story...

Images of the Mint exterior and the catwalk and count room appear courtesy of UNLV Special Collections. The souvenir program images were kindly supplied by a reader - see above.