Longest Losing Streak in History

karen — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 17:41:15 +0000

I recently came across the shocking story about the man who managed to lose nearly $127 million over the course of a year in the Caesars Palace and Rio casinos in Las Vegas sometime during 2007. Its believed to be one of the biggest losing streaks in history. The unlucky player is now in an ugly legal battle with the casino companies involved about whether they are partly to blame and should share some of the responsibility of this losses. The player claims that the casinos plied him with alcohol and preyed on his vulnerable state. Whilst this story is interesting in and of itself it lead me read more deeply about the world of high rollers (not being one myself unfortunately) and their relationships with casinos – or rather, the extent that they go to just to lure in high rollers. There doesn’t seem to be much that they won’t do just to please a high roller including luxury suites, private jets or even fishing trips to Alaska. Ahh, to live the life of a high roller just for a day …. Competition for these high rollers has become even more fierce in the past year or so because casinos have suffered from the global economic downturn and these players are splashing out even more on their gambling habits than usual. The relationship is often uneasy and more often than the not the casinos run into trouble trying to manage these high rollers who usually have compulsive gambling habits and frequently try to pin the blame on the casino when it all goes pear shaped.

Las Vegas: Did you know … ?

karen — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:46:36 +0000

More than 35 million people visit Las Vegas every year and 87% of these visitors end up gambling during their stay in Las Vegas
There are about 1701 licensed gambling places in Las Vegas
No city in the world has more casinos than Las Vegas (somewhere around 180)
The average gambling budget per trip is USD$559
Las Vegas is one of the fastest growing cities in the US and has a 100% population growth since 1990
There are more than 325 limousines
There are more than 35 wedding chapels
El Rancho, on the Las Vegas Strip, was the first major resort to be built back in 1941 and the first casino was licensed 1931
Apparently Elvis Presley performed in 837 sold out shows (consecutively!) at the Las Vegas Hilton Casino
Whilst I couldn’t find out how exactly how many slot machines there are in total in Las Vegas (somewhere close to 200,000), I did read that there is one operating slot machine in Las Vegas for every 8 residents!
19 of the world’s largest 25 hotels (according to room count) are found on the Las Vegas Strip

Key Gambling » Las Vegas

Longest Losing Streak in History

Las Vegas: Did you know … ?