Casino Watch Focus has reported all too often on the many crimes that take place at casinos, but none have had the impact of the most recent mass shooting by Steven Paddock from the Mandalay Bay Casino hotel that was the most deadly shooting in modern U.S. history. Nearly 60 people were killed and hundreds injured by a man who was known to the gambling community in Las Vegas and who stayed at the hotel for many days prior to acting out his horrible crime. As one online source outlined, many are questioning if gambling debt lead him to this act, or if his gambling connection should be a focus at all in this mass shooting:
The subject of Paddock’s gambling life is an understandable preoccupation in Las Vegas, in part because, four days after Sunday night’s massacre at an open-air country music festival, authorities have provided no tangible motive for an attack that clearly took a great deal of plotting. That he was staying for free on a comp in the 32nd floor corner suite at Mandalay Bay — the Associated Press first reported that and /New York/ has since confirmed it — only adds to the sense that Paddock used the enormous amount of time he spent in the casino in part to devise his murderous plans.
The focus on Paddock’s gambling has many in Vegas nervous. The destination has spent the last three decades pushing past its stigmatized image as an underworld haven. Still, even without any evidence to support the notion that Paddock dug himself into any sort of financial distress with his play, there is speculation. CBS News offered this headline on Thursday: “Motive of Las Vegas gunman may lie in his gambling habits.”
Anti-gambling activists, too, embraced this notion. “Whether Paddock’s out-of-control addiction to electronic gambling machines was a central factor in what happened last Sunday will be determined by the FBI investigation,” wrote Les Bernal of Stop Predatory Gambling in a Thursday e-mail blast. “But news coverage and public discussion should not normalize Paddock’s single-minded obsession with gambling machines and the exploitive business practices used by the casinos to keep Paddock gambling continuously.”
Still yet, the entire situation is making everyone look at how much culpability, if any, should exist with the casinos where he gambled, and if anything can or should be done to prevent this in the future. An area of debate has been the fact that Paddock smuggled a small arsenal into the hotel to carry out his murderous plan. So its no surprise that executives were immediately engaged into talks about safety and security policies moving forward. An online publication reports:
The increased security measure has been a topic for discussion among casino operators since Paddock shot concertgoers from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino, a hotel complex owned by MGM Resorts International. Last year, casino magnate Steve Wynn warned that Las Vegas was a ‘target city’ and disclosed a raft of new security measures, including invisible metal detectors and specially trained guards, designed to prevent a large-scale attack.
Whether those measures would have prevented Sunday’s rampage on the strip in which 58 people were killed is unknown. But the shooting could spur casino operators to think more like Wynn, who had been dismissed as ‘obsessed’ about security before Sunday’s massacre, a rival casino executive said. ‘This could be a turning point,’ the executive said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because security measures are private. ‘Every management team is going to move this up to the top of the list.’
Some are concluding that culpability absolutely exists and the very nature of gambling addicts like Paddock leads to suicidal and other disturbing thoughts. They also suggest that the issue wont truly be examined like is should. An online source explains:
Mandalay Bay’s practices — and indeed the practices of virtually all casinos in an increasingly wealthy and powerful gambling industry — won’t get the scrutiny they deserve.
“No credible, independent person who deals with gambling in the United States and is not being paid by the gambling industry would say Stephen Paddock was a responsible gambler,” Les Bernal told me. He heads a group known as Stop Predatory Gambling.
Last December, the Atlantic did a lengthy story on the industry. Headlined, “How casinos enable gambling addicts,” it told in detail how everything from the way machines are programmed to the perks and the hostesses in casinos are designed to keep people gambling, either with their own money or with a loan from the house. Tarbert told me how this always ends with a period of self-loathing, during which the gambler often feels suicidal.
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