7 ms·
Things I Never Knew About Las Vegas Until I Ran a High-Roller Suite
- jacobkg 8y ago“Guest confuses American and cheddar cheese, so when she orders American please bring her cheddar, but tell her it’s American.”
- raverbashing 8y agoTo be honest, actual cheddar from GB/Ireland is very different from the yellow goop served at most fast food chains. Not surprising that got associated with cheddar instead of the real thing. "American cheese-like product" is a more adequate description.
- nkrisc 8y agoCould also be because American "cheese" is very close in color to cheddar colored with annatto. They taste nothing alike, of course.
- aresant 8y ago"Almost all of the clients are men, ranging in age from millennials to 70-year-olds, and they stick around for three to five years before going dark—usually due to bad investments, dips in the economy, or divorce." This entire article made me sick to my stomach, money can be so terribly corrupting and empty.
- cyberferret 8y agoAbsolutely none of the "rich person" activities in that article even remotely appealed to me. I am confident that even if I had a bazillion dollars, I wouldn't demand the sorts of things that some of these people were asking for. Their wants and needs sound almost like those you might have seen in a past era lunatic asylum - with the exception that these people have the $$$ to actually get people to acquiesce to their insane demands and normalise them.
- puranjay 8y agoCome on, throwing pin pricked lemons and oranges around your room until they start rotting has to be at least somewhat appealing /s
- ovi256 8y ago>Absolutely none of the "rich person" activities in that article even remotely appealed to me. I am confident that even if I had a bazillion dollars, I wouldn't demand the sorts of things that some of these people were asking for. That's nice virtue signalling, but how can you be so sure before you really are in that situation ? Wealth and power are known to alter brain chemistry and behaviour. Furthermore, these butlers will be happy to help you take to their absurd end whatever indulgences you find normal.
- asdffdsa321 8y agoBecause I've lived all my life not having a bazillion dollars
- AnthonBerg 8y agoAccusations of virtue signaling are in themselves virtue signaling, where you ride forth on your little horse and neigh at people who make statements which your self-respect would not allow you to claim, little knight.
- AnthonBerg 8y agoIn light of downvotes and flagging I would like to reaffirm my position. Accusations of “virtue signaling” are hypocritical nonsense and don’t belong in civilized discourse.
- bradleyjg 8y ago> That's nice virtue signalling You mean like a peacock’s tail? An expensive, and therefore hard to fake, action that demonstrates deep commitment to a particular value system?
- 8y ago
- kreetx 8y agoI was even wondering why this is posted here, but I guess one needs to know about both good and evil. edit: and maybe not evil, but just pointless.
- chii 8y ago> This entire article made me sick to my stomach, money can be so terribly corrupting and empty. but who are you to judge what somebody else likes to spend their money on? At least these people are merely indulging their fantasies and desires, and not spending it on acquiring more power or bribery.
- test1235 8y agoI imagine many are doing both.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- mjfl 8y agoI think you're looking at it the wrong way. I think it's an extremely positive thing for society that people who are dumb enough to squander their fortunes are given an opportunity to squander it, especially if those fortunes are unearned. It's very meritocratic. I hope Las Vegas is filled with the children of billionaires.
- yetihehe 8y agoI think that if they gave those fortunes for something more worthy like progress of science or charities, it would be much more positive for society. Squandering is just spending money on unimportant things, which DO NOT give benefit to society. Yeah, some of this money will make it into hands of other people, but most of this is just removing value from society.
- mjfl 8y agonone of the money evaporates, all of it makes it into the hands of other people.
- yetihehe 8y agoYou are right, but goods represented by money can be destroyed. Maybe we should all break some windows [1] from time to time, to stimulate economy? This will transfer some money to the other people. Or buy some lemons and dump them in volcano. This will be very good for all lemon farmers and if we do this often enough, prices for lemons will increase, so farmers will have even more money... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
- southerndrift 8y agoWhere is value removed? The money ends up in the hands of casino companies that spend it on architecture and arts or it is paid out to shareholders who will invest it in new opportunities. It's really difficult to remove value from society. Even if they burn bills, it will only increase the value of every other Dollar because the supply of Dollars just shrunk. You have to maliciously commission bad art or create toxic waste to remove value.
- jghjg 8y agoCapitalism dude. While some people are playing with money, some others are dying
- te_chris 8y agoThere's a great line from the book Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie where the narrator of the book remarks that (and I'm paraphrasing here), there's loads of ways in the world to be poor, but apparently there's only one way to be rich - indulge in the same 'luxuries'.
- beaconstudios 8y agoSomeone should've let the founder of ikea know, he lived a famously cheap lifestyle.
- jemfinch 8y agoIs there a some reason why we should be interested in your particular brand of moralism instead of some other?
- sidstling 8y agoI think context is king with these articles. It’s not a sneak peak into the lives of the wealthy, it’s a peak into the very vip section of a casino. The article itself is written mainly to sell the drama and the sleaze, and it’s purposedly focusing on the worst bits. It’s fascinating, sure, but I think it’s also kind of useless informationwise, when you take the context into mind. If anything I think it’s more sad than sickening. I doubt those rich bastards are very happy, and no one is helping them find a better path in life. In fact the casino seem to have build an environment that specifically enables their bad behavior because it’s profitable.
- cyberferret 8y agoThis line does more than almost anything else I've read to explain the wealth disparity between the 1%ers and the rest of the world: > "Those are stakes of roughly $600,000 per minute, or $36 million per hour. (That nearly matches the 2017 gross domestic product of Tuvalu: $40 million.)"
- forrestthewoods 8y ago> wealth disparity between the 1%ers and the rest of the world To make the Global Top 1% you have to earn $32,400. [1] Being a billionaire puts you in the top .00003% of human. There are ~2200 billionaires out of 7.55 billion people.
- cyborgx7 8y agoReally puts in perspective how bad it has gotten.
- barry-cotter 8y agoIndeed, we all long for the days, before 1800 or so, the overwhelming majority of human history, when the people living on more than $2 a day were a vanishingly small minority. The expansion of health, wealth, education and prosperity since WW2 has been particularly revolting. Education and lifespan have increased on every continent and wealth per person has increased on every continent bar Africa. This is not the wretched poverty, suffering and disease, the death in childbirth, the children dying in their droves in infancy that we deserve.
- cyborgx7 8y agoAre you denying that the income and wealth disparity between the poor and the rich is currently widening?
- beaconstudios 8y agoYou're just sat in the 1%, looking up at the .01% and decrying the immorality of their success. Worldwide, the number of people living in extreme poverty has IIRC halved since the 90s. Fatal diseases in third world countries are being prevented. Things are getting better for the most vulnerable people but everyone is focused on how unjust it is that Warren Buffett or Jeff Bezos makes more than them. Why care?
- sneak 8y agoThe part where they talk about denying people spending >$1mm the fulfillment of orders for drugs or sex that amount to $500-1000 is ridiculous farce. They don’t operate in a vacuum, and a casino that won’t cater to legitimate and reasonable demands of a high roller will lose them to one who does, duh.
- joosters 8y agoWell obviously they have to say that they don't supply drugs and prostitutes in these articles. What they do or tell the suckers staying at the casino is another matter...
- onion2k 8y agoIf other clients start thinking the casino has a reputation for sex and drugs they'll go elsewhere. You have to balance which guests you want to keep.
- mijamo 8y agoOh no, a casino that allows drugs for wealthy people, how dare them, I will stay elsewhere! Said no one ever. I know several people who worked in palaces in several places and drug is NOT a problem to get. Either it is supplied directly by employees with a reasonably high commission, or the employees just answers something like "oh no we can't do that here. I heard however that there is a guy outside that can fix that for you". Prostitutes are not a big deal either but you have to keep it classy and do not make scandal (so no screaming or too weird stuff and no cheap prostitute or underage girl, and they should look like fancy ladies most of the time). Overall it's not really a big deal as long as it's not a client openly asking for drugs in the lobby.
- mattnewport 8y agoYeah, I'm skeptical. Not only would they have to say that while facing strong incentives to do it, I've also been told by a former high roller that they happily brought multiple prostitutes to his suite at a time. He'd decided that his former lifestyle was not a path to happiness but shared some wild stories of what the casinos will do to keep customers like his former self happy.
- cgoecknerwald 8y agoIf you're interested in reading about the darker side of gambling, I recommend this long-form from The Atlantic: "How Casinos Enable Gambling Addicts." "Did Scott Stevens die because he was unable to rein in his own addictive need to gamble? Or was he the victim of a system carefully calibrated to prey on his weakness?" https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/12/losing-it-all/505814/ https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/12/losing-...
- pandapower2 8y ago>Those are stakes of roughly $600,000 per minute, or $36 million per hour. This is an odd thing about gambling when compared to drugs, prostitution or other vices. Gambling can scale up to consume whatever amount of money you happen to have. It is no doubt a lot but there is some upper bound on how much heroin/cocaine/whatever you can consume without outright killing yourself. Similarly, there is some upper bound on how much any single human can spend on prostitutes. Gambling has no upper bound. It can scale up infinitely in line with the gamblers financial means. I don't know what that theoretical cost ceiling is for drugs and prostitution but I'd hazard a guess and say its way lower than $36 million per hour.
- beaconstudios 8y agoThere are other vices that can eat into millions. Conspicuous consumption and buying ridiculous luxury vehicles, for two examples. There's diamond studded, gold plated everything these days for the millionaire who wants to own the most expensive phone, bra, watch, shades, handbag and so on.
- cm2187 8y agoBut even the price of a diamond has a limited range. Art on the other side has no upper limit. A little canvas with something conceptual drawn on it can easily reach tens of millions of dollar. I always thought that part of the pleasure people get by shopping is purchasing things that are stlighly more expensive that they can afford. That goes from buying the cheapest scarf at Hermes to buying an expensive car and anything in between depending on your means. Problem, how do you get that pleasure when you have over $500m at the bank? Comes art dealers, who will happily make you believe that this really exclusive conceptual thing is worth more than an entire building. I don’t think most wealthy buyers care the slightlest about art. But they can finally access that same stingy pleasure a secretary can get buying a Hermes scarf.
- pm90 8y agoOne can be both rich and still have a deep appreciation of art.
- coldtea 8y ago>There is one habit that even the brattiest clients tend to avoid: getting blindingly drunk. When you’re gaming at such astronomical dollar values, after all, it’s critical to keep your wits. The author would be surprised. Besides, those are only "astronomical" for them and their salary, not for e.g. oil heirs. It's not like those people came there to strategically win... >Also in the category of demands that can’t be fulfilled: hookers. Yeah, right. >Requests for drugs—usually cocaine—are also once-a-week occurrences that come with a hard “no.” (Unless, of course, butlers see a valid prescription.) Or, you know, if a employee working at the casino will make a thousand $ for their middleman role, for little risk.
- Gustomaximus 8y agoThe cocaine one is not true at all hotels. A friend of mine spent an evening with a high roller. This guy literally ordered cocaine via room service phone and it came up on a tray in lines. To be fair it was around 20 years ago so maybe times have changed...
- Cthulhu_ 8y agoIt really depends on whether law enforcement is able to barge in there and do a bust. I wouldn't be surprised if the local government keeps an eye closed, given how much the high rollers contribute to local businesses. Don't know if the local government makes much money off of the casinos though (e.g. taxes).
- newsbinator 8y ago> Some guests are completely phobic about having anything thrown away, lest the discarded object be something lucky. Hot winning streaks may be accompanied by mounds of cigarette ashes, crumpled paper, or random assortments of trash. It’s so common, most butlers know never to remove anything from a gaming table without triple-checking. ... what is the worldview of these people?
- patrickk 8y agoIt's probably extremely wealthy, highly superstitious Asian guests. The article mentions that more than 50% of the guests come from Asia.
- jaclaz 8y ago>... not even James Bond could charm his way through the door. Oww, come on ... James Bond of course could if he wanted to, the issue is that they insist on stirring Martini's: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaken,_not_stirred https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaken,_not_stirred
- jccalhoun 8y agoI worked as a cashier at a riverboat casino in the midwest. Some nights I would be in the little cage in the high limit slot area. About once a month a specific woman would come in and take a whole row of the $10 and $25 slots (around 10 machines) and just walk up and down the row putting coins in the machine, hitting the button, and moving on to the next machine without even waiting to see if she won.
- mvpu 8y agoOh well. I don't think any of these "high net worth" clients are actually there to make money.. they're probably there to blow away a few million that they can recover easily from other investments or revenue sources. Re: cheese and sweeping things from hotels.. lol, they're human afterall :)