"Not a casino employee, but I used to work at a bank. Had a customer asking about something on her account, so I was reviewing her statement and saw these frequent $2,000 withdrawals at the casino nearby. In the one statement I was looking at, there were over $10K in withdrawals, and this customer’s total account balance was somewhere around $60K. I started going backward in her statements and found she had sold a house and received something like $700K less than a year ago, and had steadily gambled it almost all away, month by month. It was one of the most depressing things I saw there, which is saying a lot at a bank."
"I’ve only been to a casino one time. Coming into the casino I saw a man playing a card game and someone told me he had $150,000 worth of chips in front of him. At the end of the day when I was getting ready to leave, the same man was at the bar begging for bus fare to get home. The bartender told me he had even given his car to someone exchange for cash. After that day I never set foot in a casino again."
"Coming into work and seeing the same people still playing that were there when I left the night before."
"I worked at a casino over a decade ago, but here's mine: Somebody won a small jackpot, something like $2000. When checking her ID for tax paperwork it was discovered that she had put herself on the state's problem gambler self-exclusion list, which meant the casino was obligated to remove her from the building without paying (she wouldn't have been allowed in the building if she had been recognized). While double checking the manager downloaded an updated list (we auto-checked against a local copy that was sometimes a few days out of date) and it showed that she had removed herself from the list with sufficient notice, so the jackpot was paid out.
She proceeded to put every penny of the jackpot back into the slot machine... And also made a couple visits to the ATM... And at the end of her stay she asked the cashiers if she could be put back on the self-exclusion list."
"I was driving cross country for work and stopped in West Memphis for the night. Went to the casino to burn a few hours. From my machine I saw a lady playing slots with tears running down her face. I heard her scream and looked up to realize the machine hit zero and she started bawling uncontrollably. She was screaming that she had nothing left and to please have her money back. Got removed by security. I hit for $150 and cashed out but the walk to my car was terrifying. I'm not a target demographic for mugging, but the desperation on people's faces was noticeable. Never going there again."
"My first December working in the casino I'm still at. I was on a blackjack table and a guy sits down and drops $1565 on the table and tells the dealer "dealer, my family's about to have a great Christmas or no Christmas"
20 minutes later it's gone and he asks the dealer if she's happy with herself and how well the casino has to be paying her.
Never saw the guy again(our casino is 95% repeat customers) so I wouldn't be surprised if that actually was his Christmas money."
"Was in AC 20 years ago. it was midnight and there were a bunch of small kids sleeping on coats outside the casino floor… in the bathroom alone, etc."
"Worked Valet at a casino. One night we got the car and they dropped it off, left the keys in (normal here). I hopped in to move it and it smelled like death. I moved the car and informed my super. He called the cops as it was the smell of a decaying body.
Cops came and we opened the truck.... full of groceries.... from 4 months ago.... in the missouri summer heat. It was chicken. They came to claim their car and were told to not park here in valet again
They said the person who normally carries their groceries up to their second floor apartment left and they don't have anyone to help them anymore. So now they go to casinos and eat out every night....
They didn't have money to do this, no idea where it came from. I will never gamble or go to a casino after working valet those years. Many many more stories."
"I was a bartender in a local casino and especially older people would sit at my bar 8-10 hours a day, feeding money into the bar top machines, all while talking about their homes being foreclosed on, their lights getting shut off, etc. They got free pop, coffee, juice, and then after feeding all this money in them, would tell me, "Sorry I cant tip you, I have to watch my money!".. not even a damn dollar. I had to quit because the whole scene went against what I believe. My next door neighbor came in one day and asked me if I could lend them $300.00 cause this machine was "getting ready to hit". He said he was in there to win money to pay his light bill. That was a big fat NO!"
"Not a worker, but I saw a guy try to bet his prosthetic arm in Vegas."
"I worked a bank near an Indian casino. The casino bus would park near the retirement home and shuttle the people to the casino whenever social security checks cleared. Those who had accounts with us would come the next day trying to halt any payments because of "fraud" from the casinos. Every month."
"I spent a lot of time in the casino, my dad had a gambling problem, it’s sad to watch your hero fall but he pulled himself out and away from that but the things I’ve seen…
Seen a blind Chinese man come in with his bodyguards to help him gamble
I’ve seen couples blow their entire money and just stand there looking at each other half in tears
I sat next to a woman who lost it all and just couldn’t bring herself to get off the chair because reality wasn’t setting in
My dad used to really hit it big, and once he would make me play on one machine and he plays on the other…. His was losing and mine started winning big I got shoved off that seat so fast….
I don’t miss that place it’s full of greed and misery."
"Former cage supervisor - in the span of a month, 2 people jumped off the top of our 6 story parking garage.
Saddest part was that when it happened the second time, all the staff were just like "Really? Again? That's inconvenient"."
"I wish the guy who worked the blackjack table at the casino my dad went to could respond here about stories of my dad.
My father had a successful plumbing and sewer company in Miami. If it wasn't for his addiction, we would probably be millionaires, and I would have taken over the now defunct corporation. My sister told me a story that he won $10,000 and proceeded to lose it all and about $15,000 more in one night. I feel for anyone who has this horrible addiction and the ones affected by it."
"Oh man, I have a ton from my 15 years as a casino manager, but I’ll just write a few and come back later:
Woman who was an anesthesiologist asssistant hit a “bad beat jackpot” at a 1-2 no limit poker table for around $120k. For non-poker players, this is the lowest stakes no limit hold’em game offered by most poker rooms. The buy-in range was from $100-300 min/max at our room, so by poker standards not terribly high. After she hit the jackpot she started playing the bigger games, first 2-5 no limit ($200-1000 buy-in) and then moving up to 5-10 no limit ($500 min, and I believe at the time it was no max). Next thing you knew she was out playing in the high stakes blackjack pit playing $100 a hand. She got bumped up to a black card quickly from all the blackjack she was playing.
Fast forward about 4-6 weeks, maybe 2 months tops and we don’t see her around as much. A few players asked if we’d seen her and a couple let it be known that she borrowed money from them and hasn’t repaid it. She started showing up late at night wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses and playing slots.
Shortly after, security determined that she had been living out of her car and sleeping in the parking garage.
The fall went QUICK. It was just like all the lottery winner horror stories I’d seen on tv but playing out in real time."
"Ex-casino worker here. I saw way too many people spend ridiculous amounts of money on gambling. I've seen little kids asleep in chairs outside the casino floor cause their parents were busy gambling. A gentleman had a heart attack at a poker table and other gamblers were pissed cause we had to stop the games so EMS could come.
Saddest one though was a lady who wanted to cash a check made out to the electric company. She wanted to know if she could scratch out the company name and write in the casino name. I told her we could not do that."
"Way too many in 10 years of dealing table games. I’ve seen people lose a lot of money until they cried at my table, people sitting at machines and being there the next day I came to work smelling like actual s**t, a regular always brought her disabled kid in a wheelchair and put them next to her while she gambled for almost a day each time.
I had a guy who clearly had dementia at my table and even with complaints they still allowed him to play. He could barely make hand signals and kept forgetting we were in the middle of hands. It didn’t help that he was tipping the beverage server well so he got massively over-served alcohol.
Reports on these people should have made it so they couldn’t continue doing this stuff but it never actually changed anything.
The worst was a few tables away from me a guy’s girlfriend was trying to get him to leave and he got so pissed he tried to choke her to death right at the table. He ran from security into the woods behind the casino and [took his own life]."
"One of the saddest things I've seen was a regular patron who had clearly lost more than just money over time. He'd come in frequently, always chasing his losses, and it was evident that his gambling habit had taken a toll on his personal life. Over the months, he became more withdrawn, and his clothes and demeanor showed signs of neglect. It was heartbreaking to watch someone lose not just financially but also in terms of their well-being and relationships."
"Not a casino worker, just somebody who likes casual gambling.
First time I was ever at a casino the woman in front of me at the atm took out her last five dollars. And paid a 9.95 atm fee to get it. Her account balance flashed on the screen as she walked away.
Almost made me wanna go home."
"I'm not a casino worker. I was at a bar on the casino floor and an elderly man in a suit and hat sat down a few seats over and started talking to the bartender.
They made smalltalk and then he mentioned that his wife of 50 years had died of cancer a few weeks beforehand. He said they never had kids and not many friends, so he took all the savings they had and came to Vegas to "have some fun until the money runs out, then I'll be going home to be with my wife."
Bartender never followed up on it but just kinda let him drink. I just awkwardly kept scrolling on my phone. What do you even say to that?"
"Not a casino worker, but still a sad story. Managed an apartment portfolio decades ago and one of the properties was in Vegas. Keep in mind that this was before the days of paying your rent online. We had a zero cash collection policy, but the manager of the property told everyone was "lifted" for the month to help boost our collections. The perfect storm happened on a Friday that aligned with a lot of paydays. She collected about $80k (roughly $150k in today's dollars) in cash for rent and then went to the casino and put it all on red. Her thinking was that she would double it, then deposit the $80k on Monday and nobody would ever know the difference. She did not win. Monday comes around and I see that the money didn't get to the bank so I call the property. Nobody has seen the manager. Alarm bells immediately ring in my head. I fly to Vegas. We eventually found her at some dude's house and called the police. So stupid."
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What a stupid idiot. Blame others for his own faults, life decisions and his addiction. Let Darwin sort him out.
Oh, and the training facilities for croupiers were a lot of fun to be. We learned to explain the payout of slotmachines. To do that, we would fill them up with (training) coins and start playing. Some machines you could bet 5 coins on each of the 7 winlines. So 35 coins in a single push of a button, gone. You could have a bucket of coins, spend a few minutes filling the machine with m, and then play it away in 60 seconds.