At 6:30 a.m. on September 11, 2001 (\u201c9\/11\u201d), I was just walking into my room at the Main Street Inn (now the Bridger Inn) in downtown Las Vegas after an all-nighter playing and scouting. I turned on the TV and saw the fire at the World Trade Center, which had been hit by a small plane, they said. I grew up in sight of the towers (at least on a clear day from the cemetery on top of the hill), so it was surreal seeing them collapse. Then all domestic flights were grounded, and I found myself locked down in Vegas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Today\u2019s youth, and some of us old-timers, have forgotten who the luckiest person on earth was that day. Lost in the shuffle of 9\/11 was one U.S. Representative Gary Condit. At the time, he was dominating the headlines after the May-2001 disappearance of Chandra Levy, an intern with whom he had had an affair. The public (read \u201cI\u201d) believed he had a role in her disappearance, or at a minimum was not sharing all of his information with investigators. Then 9\/11 happened and the Condit Scandal evaporated, just like that. When Levy\u2019s body was found in 2002, it was barely a story.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
The same thing just happened with the Coronavirus Pandemic.\nTo remind you, dear reader: just three months ago, much of the world was mourning\nthe death of Kobe Bryant. We were deluged by epitaphs, murals, candlelight vigils,\nand sobbing testimonials about how lives were changed from having glimpsed Kobe\nat LAX. In my own way, my last blog post (Coronavirus I) was an exhortation to\nembrace the #MambaMentality, but I guess I won\u2019t get much traction until I create\nan alliterative moniker, employ hashtags, become a billionaire, and then die\ntragically, perhaps only then inspiring a young generation of APs to study\ntheir charts and their Paints.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before we move on to re-opening casinos in the brave, new, coronavirus-infected world, I want to discuss the gambling world\u2019s hottest topic, that has been rendered as cold as the Border Wall\u2014the MGM $800 million settlement with the 58 victims of the Las Vegas Shooting of October 1, 2017. First, I would like to propose a policy for the media\u2014unless a shooter is at large, his name should not be published! Many of these mass murderers, the Vegas Shooter in particular, are losers who want attention and fame. Mass murder is a loser\u2019s easiest path to fame; a lifetime of hard work and constructive creativity (the Bill Gates path) is much harder! Some in the media will say that the name of a shooter is \u201cnews,\u201d and that the public has a right to know. Really? I don\u2019t need to know a shooter\u2019s name any more than I need to know the names of victims of sexual abuse, the names of minors involved in crimes, or the names of government whistleblowers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I sometimes read that the Vegas Shooter\u2019s motive remains unknown. I\u2019m gonna do the media and the FBI a solid, in this blog. I will reveal the motive right here: the Vegas Shooter was on full-blown tilt and wanted to set the record to show how “smart” he was. Read that horrific truth again: he wanted to set the record<\/em><\/strong>. He had no particular ax to grind with the people at the Route 91 Harvest, but the event satisfied his sole criterion\u2014max body count.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The casino-manipulated Vegas media tries to shape every\nsquare gambler into the round AP hole, and so we immediately heard stories that\nthis guy was some kind of AP, a diabolical genius with trajectory calculations\non a notepad in his hotel room. (I\u2019m guessing he used the Pythagorean Theorem\u2014middle-school\nmath\u2014to determine whether his bullets would reach the concert field from his 32nd<\/sup>\nfloor room at Mandalay Bay.) GWAE hosts Richard Munchkin and Bob Dancer were\nboth quoted in stories about the shooter. One article had a line that went like\nthis: \u201cSome speculated that he could have been an AP. Expert gambling\nconsultant Richard Munchkin says that APs are very smart and creative.\u201d Do you\nsee what they did there? Why are we trying to amplify this loser?<\/p>\n\n\n\n The casinos put out the story line that this guy was an AP, or at least a wealthy man gambling within his means, and kept quiet while the media quickly turned this into a gun debate. Reporters raced to interview every gun shop owner from Tonopah to Mesquite. That the guns were legal then led to calls to limit ammunition sales or ban bump stocks. While it\u2019s fair to discuss most shootings in the context of gun control and perhaps mental-health policy, this shooting was different. This one was about gambling<\/strong><\/em>. Only weeks after the shooting did I start to see an occasional comment from a casino host, of course devoid of any hard numbers or account statements. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Before we look into this loser\u2019s gambling, let\u2019s get two things straight. First, diabolical genius is not the same as a willingness to kill. Secondly, the Vegas Shooter was not a diabolical genius. I have argued since the beginning that the guy is not even smart. He is not a winning player. Some APs then said, \u201cHe was locking up two machines on a car giveaway.\u201d So what? Even degenerates recognize value. That\u2019s why casinos offer promotions! Machine players said they had crossed paths with this guy numerous times. At a casino I used to play, I crossed paths daily with degenerates who would try to play the same dealers I did, try to get the same seat I wanted, and then lean way back while going for the hole card. They were losers. Even degenerates recognize the value of knowing the hole card versus not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The AP community is small. As Worm tried to explain to the snotty dealer in Rounders<\/em>, \u201cWe all know each other here.\u201d Despite all the APs saying they crossed paths with the Shooter on good slot machines, I have yet to hear any AP who personally knew him, personally played on a team with him, knew his handle on the AP message boards, or any of that. I hear he bought some AP books. So? Is he in the Griffin Book? Was he barred from any casino?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I\u2019d be impressed if the media could assemble a simple spreadsheet listing every Vegas casino and how much money this guy won or lost at each one over the last three years. That\u2019s your motive right there. To those who have told me that this guy was actually a winner at some casinos, I would ask, \u201cSays who?\u201d Even if the guy happened to win at some casinos, the overall trend is down. Successful APs don\u2019t buy a new house in Mesquite and brag to the neighbor about being a professional gambler.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The media says the guy had millions, so they can\u2019t explain his behavior. Smh. For the people out there who don\u2019t understand gambling, and particularly degenerate gambling, pay attention: Tilt happens. Have you ever seen a poker player get stacked twice in five minutes, and then go on tilt? The fact that those two buy-ins on a $500 max game are inconsequential relative to total bankroll seems not to matter. Now imagine the tilt level when 80% of the bankroll is wiped out. If the Vegas Shooter once had $8 million, but dropped to $1 or $2 million, you think he\u2019s happy to be a millionaire? Now layer on top of it that he\u2019s surrounded by gorgeous cocktail waitresses and other Vegas baubles that he can no longer afford. His \u201cgirlfriend\u201d? Please. She met him when she was working at a Reno casino. I\u2019d bet anything that their relationship was entirely financial, and that she was accelerating the bleeding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n With every AP who disagrees with my admittedly speculative assessment, the argument ends with my simple question, \u201cBased on what you now know about his gambling (and not the mass murder part), if you were the Casino Manager making the business decision, would you bar him?\u201d Every AP I\u2019ve talked to says they would not bar him. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The casinos smartly kept their mouths shut regarding the\nextent of this guy\u2019s gambling. I\u2019m irritated that the media gave the casinos a\npass on that. However \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n I think it\u2019s ridiculous that the MGM, Mandalay Bay’s parent company, has now been pressured to pay $800 million to the victims (though I’m not faulting the victims for playing the game and taking money they can legally extract from a casino). I\u2019m not aware of anything that indicates that MGM did anything wrong in regards to the shooting and hotel security. I\u2019ll break this down into two parts\u2014the response of hotel security personnel, and the general security conditions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I heard that the Mandalay security ran the other way, or that timelines indicate that most of the deaths happened after the initial shot that alerted hotel security. I don\u2019t care. Sure, it would be great if hotel security took the guy out and saved the day before any lives were lost, but as a hotel guest, I do not expect hotel security to protect me from a heavily armed terrorist. I expect hotel security to quiet unruly neighbors, stop people from smoking weed in the hallway, deter rampant breaking and entering, maybe break up a shoving match in the nightclub, and call the cops in an emergency. I prefer that hotel security not be armed (and indeed, most hotels in the world do not have armed security), and when they are armed, I expect that to be for deterrence, basically a bluff. Stopping the worst mass shooting in US history? The Mandalay security guard did not sign up for that! He is not military, not even police. I do not expect him to put his life on the line in that situation. Would it be great if he did? Sure. Do I expect it or think he has some legal obligation to do so? No, and IANAL.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Even if the guard failed a duty, how could MGM or any hotel ever have a hiring process that could vet applicants for such scenarios? Who knows what a guy would do when facing an active shooter? If the employee did have some legal duty to engage a shooter, what if the employee just turned around, called the front desk and said, \u201cI quit.\u201d Would MGM be on the hook there?<\/p>\n\n\n\n As far as I know, cops were called, which is all I would expect, and the whole thing was over in 10 minutes. Should the call have happened a minute or two sooner? Perhaps, but overall indications are that the response of hotel personnel was \u201cnormal.\u201d Try as they might to create heroes, the media needs to admit that sometimes there isn\u2019t one, which is fine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n As for general security conditions, and the claim that Mandalay Bay was negligent in allowing the guy to get twenty suitcases of gear into his suite, I say, \u201cNonsense!\u201d First of all, that amount of luggage is not that unusual in Las Vegas. A single LA party girl can have four suitcases\u2014easy! On several occasions, I have been part of an entourage with valet carts piled high with suitcases heading to the suite. A Nebuchadnezzar needs its own crate, and there could be several of those. A band or film crew would have tons of gear. Besides, suitcases can go up to the suite one at a time, so now people want staff to enforce luggage limits within<\/em> the rooms? Many guests in Las Vegas want privacy in their rooms, and legitimately do not want hotel staff checking luggage and closets. Even if hotels starting limiting luggage, that would simply be more security theater. The shooter probably could have carried out his plan with only five locked suitcases. Future hotel policy should not be based on the most extreme case in the history of Las Vegas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I have enjoyed my stays at Mandalay Bay over the years. I think it\u2019s a wonderful hotel, and the berry bowl at The Caf\u00e9 was heavenly. Their hotel security was comparable to every other Strip hotel, which is already excessive. I find room-key controlled elevators annoying (which is one reason I prefer the Bridger Inn downtown). Boosting fake security, such as inspecting car trunks in the parking garages, does nothing but perhaps increase resort fees.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Every Strip casino operates in the same way. If you think Mandalay should pay, then why shouldn\u2019t every casino on the Strip have to pay? Oh, because our legal system awards judgments based on actual measurable damages, not EV. Mandalay\/MGM got unlucky, while the Palazzo got lucky. And now MGM will pay millions to avoid the bad PR, and avoid any examination of the issue underlying all of this\u2014the gambling. I\u2019m surprised we don\u2019t see more violent manifestations of full-blown tilt, because the dark truth of it is that the Vegas Shooter isn\u2019t an outlier. Millionaire losers on their way to Bustoville are a dime a dozen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At 6:30 a.m. on September 11, 2001 (\u201c9\/11\u201d), I was just walking into my room at the Main Street Inn (now the Bridger Inn) in downtown Las Vegas after an all-nighter playing and scouting. I turned on the TV and saw the fire at the World Trade Center, which had been hit by a small […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[558],"tags":[1338,1339,1340,1018,1341,1342,1343,1344,1345,1113,1346],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840365"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=840365"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840365\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=840365"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=840365"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/shop\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=840365"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}The MGM Settlement<\/h2>\n\n\n\n