In the photo below, you can see two dogs in the casino. It was taken on a cell phone at a distance in M Resort, so it's blurry, but the dog lying down by the slot machine could be a service dog, while the little dog at the end of the woman's doesn't look at all like a service dog. As the question states, neither dog was wearing any identifying service-dog insignia.
Two dogs in a casino in the same frame got us curious, so we called M to see what they had to say.
Not much. We were told that M is not pet friendly.
With some further research, we learned that even if it doesn't look like a service dog, if the guest claims it is, the dog can go anywhere with the guest -- the casino, restaurants, the pool area, even the nightclub. And there are only two questions hotel staff can ask about dogs (or miniature horses) that guests bring and claim to be service animals, when the answers aren't self-evident from simple observation.
Is this animal needed because of a disability?
What work or tasks has this animal been trained to do?
According to the Americans with Disabilities Act, hospitality staff cannot ask for documents, certificates, proof, or details about either the individual’s disability or the animals’ training. The biggest complaint disability organizations hear from their clients is that they're challenged in these ways.
All that said, we imagine that in a non-pet-friendly hotel, if this woman was simply taking her dog for a walk in the casino, of if the slot player didn't want to leave the pooch at home, security would probably find them and ask them and their dogs to leave.
