MGM Resorts played games with high rollers like Stephen Paddock — and his anger at the casino giant may have driven him to commit modern America’s deadliest mass shooting, a new documentary suggests.
The film, “Money Machine,” aims to offer new clues about why Paddock fired indiscriminately into a crowd of thousands in October 2017, killing 58 and injuring hundreds — a question local and federal investigators struggled to answer.
Drawing on interviews with people who knew the gunman, filmmaker Ramsey Denison posits that
Paddock was angry at MGM for promising perks it didn’t deliver — so he wanted to leave the company a bloody mess to clean up.
“They had to make it look like this was just some random act by a guy and that it had nothing to do with the casinos, and that’s just simply not true,” Denison told The Post.
“He did it the way he did it to leave MGM liable,” he added.
The movie, which opens online Friday, is Denison’s follow-up to “What Happened in Vegas,” his 2017 directorial debut focusing on police brutality and corruption in Vegas. “Money Machine” paints Sin City’s powers that be as quick to sweep the shooting under the rug through interviews with survivors and investigators, while MGM and public officials are heard from through their past statements and appearances.
It contradicts the findings of the FBI, whose probe of the attack unearthed “no single or clear motivating factor” behind it. Investigators also found nothing to indicate Paddock was driven by a “grievance” against MGM’s Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino — where he committed the massacre — or any other Vegas institution.
But Paddock’s brother, Eric Paddock, recalled him growing irate at Mandalay Bay for reneging on perks. For instance, he says, the casino would triple the “points” given to other gamblers during certain hours but tell Paddock he couldn’t take advantage of the promotion.
“When they broke the deal, he was pissed,” Eric Paddock says in the film. “The deal’s a deal.”
This sort of tactic was common at Mandalay Bay and MGM, according to former bellhop Andy Martinez, who remembers Paddock as a sometimes moody “man of very few words.”
When high rollers suffered a big loss, Martinez alleges, Mandalay Bay would lure them back with complimentary perks like a weekend hotel stay — only to tell them the room was unavailable and charge $500 for an upgrade.
“I saw it continuously — thinking everything’s gonna be comped and when they get there, nothing is comped,” Martinez says in the film. “This deceptive practice comes from the very top.”
In a statement, MGM Resorts General Counsel John McManus rejected the idea that Paddock targeted the company, noting that he scouted other locations for the massacre and was a
“lifetime winner” at Mandalay Bay.
“We also hoped law enforcement could have found evidence to determine a motive as it is almost too painful to believe that one man caused this carnage just because he could,” McManus told The Post. “We regret that the efforts of these individuals to have their 15 minutes of fame may cause the survivors and families of those lost additional pain.”
McManus also denied Martinez’s accusation that it asked customers to pay for things it had promised for free. The company has asked the Nevada Gaming Control Board to investigate the alleged practice, he said.
“Money Machine” is available to stream starting Friday from Theatrical-At-Home, a streaming platform launched by production company Joma Films.
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Originally Posted by TheXFactor
