http://www.lvrj.com/news/excalibur-m...183662921.html
A guy walked into the lobby, shot a vegas.com concierge (who may have been his ex-girlfriend), and then killed himself.
People went into a severe panic because they immediately had thoughts about what happened in Connecticut.
It's the 6th murder-suicide in the Vegas area in the past 2 months.
Originally Posted by Dan Druff
Merry Christmas Druff.
I was playing in the Palms poker room when the floor person got a call from a friend of hers who works at the trashy castle saying that this just happened. She was only surprised that it was being reported in the media already since most of the time you never hear about stuff like this since it's bad for business.
She said people would be shocked to learn how often murders and or suicides take place in Vegas. For instance, two people jumped off the top of Palms Place in the last few months. I never heard a peep about it and I follow Vegas news very closely. Somebody needs to write a book about this shit.
"Let us be thankful for the fools. But for them the rest of us could not succeed. " -Mark Twain
twitter.com/jvferg72
That makes sense, my jaw dropped when Druff said this was the 6th in 2 months?????
There are definitely studies on this.
Cant remember the exact stat, I heard this thing on freakanomics that, something like it was the most popular city to commit suicide in, if you are not committing suicide in your home state.
NY City had the lowest rate of all.
I'll try and find the podcast, I thought it was going to be about gambling, then I couldn't turn it off.
I would probably do the same thing if I had to stay at the Excalibur
Most of these murder-suicides in the past 2 months were not in casinos.That makes sense, my jaw dropped when Druff said this was the 6th in 2 months?????
There are definitely studies on this.
Cant remember the exact stat, I heard this thing on freakanomics that, something like it was the most popular city to commit suicide in, if you are not committing suicide in your home state.
NY City had the lowest rate of all.
I'll try and find the podcast, I thought it was going to be about gambling, then I couldn't turn it off.
I believe they happen a lot in Las Vegas because the city seems to attract a lot of people who are struggling and going to live there as a "new start". I'm not sure why Vegas is so popular for this, as the economy isn't good, and people have been doing this for years -- way before the real estate boom of the early-mid 2000s.
So, basically, a lot of down-on-their-luck people move to Vegas, fail again there (sometimes even worse), and then get despondent enough to do some sort of fucked up murder suicide thing.
One of the murder-suicides, by the way, was an 86-year-old man who shot his 85-year-old wife before killing himself. I assume he was either senile/crazy or they were both sick and he just decided to end it all for both of them. These murder-suicides of super old people isn't all that uncommon.
But yeah, I always thought Vegas had far more suicides than were being reported. It just seems like there's a high potential for that, given the gambling environment, and the fact that almost all gamblers lose in the long run.
That makes sense, my jaw dropped when Druff said this was the 6th in 2 months?????
There are definitely studies on this.
Cant remember the exact stat, I heard this thing on freakanomics that, something like it was the most popular city to commit suicide in, if you are not committing suicide in your home state.
NY City had the lowest rate of all.
I'll try and find the podcast, I thought it was going to be about gambling, then I couldn't turn it off.
Drexel actually brought this up on a radio show at one point. It was very interesting.
He was basically saying how a lot of people come to Vegas to die whether it is to just drink/gamble their lives away or to commit suicide. He said the local media is in the pockets of the casinos and this is why it hardly gets reported. Makes sense to me.
Wow,Most of these murder-suicides in the past 2 months were not in casinos.
I believe they happen a lot in Las Vegas because the city seems to attract a lot of people who are struggling and going to live there as a "new start". I'm not sure why Vegas is so popular for this, as the economy isn't good, and people have been doing this for years -- way before the real estate boom of the early-mid 2000s.
So, basically, a lot of down-on-their-luck people move to Vegas, fail again there (sometimes even worse), and then get despondent enough to do some sort of fucked up murder suicide thing.
One of the murder-suicides, by the way, was an 86-year-old man who shot his 85-year-old wife before killing himself. I assume he was either senile/crazy or they were both sick and he just decided to end it all for both of them. These murder-suicides of super old people isn't all that uncommon.
But yeah, I always thought Vegas had far more suicides than were being reported. It just seems like there's a high potential for that, given the gambling environment, and the fact that almost all gamblers lose in the long run.
This guy is a professor at Temple, and said people look at that stat and assume it means people come here on vaca, lose their life savings and jump out of the window, but it is mostly like what you said. Poverty, drugs, alcohol. Gambling doesn't play a big role in the stat.
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/...101230939&mt=2
please delete this post
Last edited by GrenadaRoger; 12-16-2012 at 05:28 PM.
Most of these murder-suicides in the past 2 months were not in casinos.
I believe they happen a lot in Las Vegas because the city seems to attract a lot of people who are struggling and going to live there as a "new start". I'm not sure why Vegas is so popular for this, as the economy isn't good, and people have been doing this for years -- way before the real estate boom of the early-mid 2000s.
So, basically, a lot of down-on-their-luck people move to Vegas, fail again there (sometimes even worse), and then get despondent enough to do some sort of fucked up murder suicide thing.
One of the murder-suicides, by the way, was an 86-year-old man who shot his 85-year-old wife before killing himself. I assume he was either senile/crazy or they were both sick and he just decided to end it all for both of them. These murder-suicides of super old people isn't all that uncommon.
But yeah, I always thought Vegas had far more suicides than were being reported. It just seems like there's a high potential for that, given the gambling environment, and the fact that almost all gamblers lose in the long run.
I swear every other time I go to a casino I see a couple in an elevator, lobby, etc., and you can tell the woman is upset/crying, and the guy is trying to sooth her and explain that it's ok that he just dropped their entire savings playing blackjack and if she'd just do another cash advance he'll get it back. You see the saddest shit in casinos. There is a certain type of almost impulsive acute depression with gambling that hits when you have blown a large sum and are walking away with empty pockets that is unique to gambling. At least with other addictions, your money gets blown over the course of time. With gambling, many a night starts with everything fine, and 6 hours later someone has fucked their whole world up.
When I was a lot younger, I was a serious degen, and really it took me getting married to chill out. You get kind of numb to huge swings when you are a gambler and just worrying about yourself, but when you see that other person getting significantly upset because they aren't used to it, you step back and realize that you are getting dangerously close to that pathetic fucker with a crying girl in the elevator.
Another phenomenon I have noticed more frequently over the past decade is the frumpy 40-50 year bookkeeper lady. They are almost always a long time trusted employee of a small/medium -sized small business, married with children, and generally have led a normal life. They have been around a business for so long that no one is looking over their shoulder any more. All of a sudden you'll see them get arrested for embezzling anywhere from $100k to sometimes a million over a few years.
You just look at the case and you know she isn't a drug addict or anything else like that, and you think slots. You can just guess that her children are getting older and don't need her attention, her marriage has become mundane, she's fat and borderline depressed already, and then she finds gambling and it's pure escapism from the mundane. And when the details come out, it's always slots or some other horrible -ev gambling game that attract women. I think I've probably seen 8-10 cases of this within a half-hour of me over the past 6-8 years, and every time I thought it was likely gambling, my initial guess ended up right. Around me, they have these internet sweepstakes places. I'm not exaggerating when I say there must be 15-20 of them within 10 minutes of me. I have no fucking idea what they are exactly because I have never bothered, but it's some type of grey area gambling under the legal definition of skill games. I'm sure no one is +ev at these places, it's probably closer to lottery vig. Every time I drive by one no matter the time the parking lot is jammed. I know of 2 suicides that while not the fault of the business, were straight up financial suicides where 90% of the money went to these parlors.
I'm a personal freedom guy, and I always want casinos in proximity, but when they do studies on these towns and the social impact, it's usually all about crimes in the parking lots and parking garages. There are a lot more problems less easy to quantify. The truth is, they are a lot like bars, strip clubs, halfway houses and prisons. You want them around to access, but not in your backyard.
I mostly agree with this. I moved about 5 minutes away from a fairly large casino when I recently bought a new house.
They specifically designed it so 95% of the traffic flows away from any of the neighborhoods, and basically flows all traffic back to the Interstate. I view this as highly positive as I wouldn't want about 99% of the patrons in my suburban neighborhood.
As a companion to BCR's story, I want to tell a little story I heard about a woman in the '90s who was obsessed with southern California horse betting.
This woman was in her early 30s, attractive, and had a happy marriage. She and her husband lived a middle-class existence -- decent home, decent cars, some (but not a lot) cash savings. She did not work, and her husband did.
Anyway, while she was bored during her days at home, she started going out to the Hollywood Park track in Inglewood (the place the Lakers used to play).
She immediately broke out to a good start. It seemed like whatever horses she picked did not lose. She started to study the horses more and more, and continued her hot streak. She ran up $250,000 in winnings at the track over a period of about 6 months. I'm not sure if she told her husband about this or not. At the time, they had a column in the LA Times called "Betting with Janice", where a horse racing expert named Janice would pick horses, and she would go up against four guest handicappers who would also provide their picks.
This woman was actually selected to be one of those four Betting With Janice handicappers, and she felt like she was on top of the world.
Then the bottom fell out.
She started to lose.
And lose.
And lose.
As well as things had gone for the first 6 months, that's how badly things went for the next 6 months. She was losing pretty much every day.
The stress of losing made her keep running to the concession stand and buying hot dogs. She pigged out on hot dogs on a daily basis as she lost, and by the end of the next 6 months, she ballooned to over 200 pounds.
Her husband was very understanding about the weight gain. He actually told her that he still loved her and was still attracted to her, and wasn't going to make an issue about the extra weight.
However, he wasn't aware of the financial side of things. She not only shot off all $250k she had originally won, but she also blew the family's entire savings of about $40k. They were now broke.
On his birthday, he came to her and said he had made a decision. He was going to buy a sports car that he had always wanted. He said that he never splurged on anything in his life, but decided to finally treat himself to something, and was going to spend $30k on this car.
His wife then broke the news to him that not only was the $30k gone, but so was other $10k that would have been left over. She confessed everything.
He didn't yell. He didn't freak out. He quietly walked out of the room without saying a word.
The next day, she was served with divorce papers.
Was not really going to post until 2013, as I literally will be out of town Wednesday until mid January.
But I will chime in on the whole BCR post.
1) I played poker next to a guy in 2008. He was a former something or other. He might have been a corporate guy, teacher, firefighter, etc... I really can't remember. He won a few pots, lost a few. He was extremely stressed and was talking about a bunch of random shit. Then he lost a HUGE pot, I want to say it was like $2K and he had what was all thought was a nuts, until it turned and rivered with 7s. He just walked away and began pacing, and just left.
2) In the height of my on line gambling experience, I was on Party Poker. I lost $700 on a single hand. I simply took the back of my laptop screen and snapped it
3) I was in AC a few months ago, lost $5,000 in the pits. I am at the point of my life where I can afford $5,000. But I still felt like fucking shit for like a month
My point is, my days of gambling are basically over. I seem to only archive the negative thoughts and experiences.
Just chiming in on the elevator time someone that lost their shirt in the pits. Been there, seen it, done it. Not a positive experience.
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