With MTV's "The Real World" set to begin shooting in downtown Vegas this month, I was curious about the casinos and/or the gaming board's policy about filming inside of a casino, since everyone that walks into a casino is being video taped anyway.
As first rumored back in mid-September, it seems that MTV's surprisingly long-running reality show, "The Real World", now in its 31st season, will be returning to Las Vegas for the third time (following previous stints at the Palms and then the Hard Rock).
The latest reliable (courtesy of downtown's Vital Vegas blog), although yet-to-be-unofficially-confirmed word has it that Downtown's now non-gaming Gold Spike hotel will be hosting the gaggle of previously unacquainted millennial roomies on its seventh floor.
As far as the rules regarding filming are concerned, the current writer happens to be a veteran producer of Vegas documentaries and can confirm that things have changed a lot since the early '90s. Back then, when Steve Wynn ruled the roost, Mirage Resorts set the standard in having a total filming blackout policy, while other properties were almost as skittish, fearing the ramifications of lawsuits should someone's spouse happen to tune in to a Travel Channel show and spot their significant other living it up at a Sin City craps table with their personal assistant, when they'd sworn they were departing, against their will, for a tedious convention in Akron, Ohio.
Since then, the mindset of many Las Vegas-casino decision makers has undergone a radical overhaul, due to factors including the Great Recession, the massive increase in competition they face thanks to the proliferation of regional casinos, and the empirical results evident from previous popular shows based in Sin City in terms of visitation levels. Not that the new generation of Vegas fans has boosted gaming revenues -- quite the reverse, in fact -- hence the non-gaming Gold Spike is an interesting, and perhaps telling, choice of host for the new series, should the rumors pan out. (On the other hand, we understand from a reliable downtown source that other entities, including the struggling SLS, were approached by the show's producers and opted to decline, for fear -- in light of previous series -- that the attendant exposure might not be of an entirely positive nature.)
As far as the rules on filming are concerned, these owe a lot more to the casinos' own sensitivities than they do to those the of Gaming Control Board. The latter's primary concerns are to do with the legitimacy of the games and the upholding of their attendant regulations, although they do have a broader remit that includes protecting the integrity of the city and its image. But it's the casinos that are more paranoid about cameras and how they might violate a guest's privacy or provoke a lawsuit from someone's boss/spouse -- sure, casinos have surveillance cameras property-wide (restrooms excluded, or so we are told/hope), but that footage is for the purposes of the property's own protection and isn't ever going to enter into the public domain unless it catches someone who tries to sue after faking a fall in the parking garage, or cheating at the tables, or stabbing someone on the nightclub dance floor (all of which we have personally observed).
These days, with CCTV cameras posted at virtually every traffic signal and pedestrian mall, not to mention myriad myriad Las Vegas webcams, you know (or should do!) that your every move is likely being captured on camera in most urban areas, especially in Las Vegas. But if you're being filmed for commercial purposes by some TV crew in a casino, the property concerned is obliged to inform you before you enter that area and obtain a signed appearance release form from you before they can incorporate that footage in their documentary/movie.
