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Sin City: The Real Las Vegas - Season 1 Episode 1
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00:00So I have a bit of a surprise for you. It's not that green limo is it? That sexy green hum. It's all for you
00:18Las Vegas a neon playground in the middle of a desert in the US state of Nevada
00:24Known as sin city this has long been a place for gamblers chasing their luck 5.7 million and some change and
00:35Tourists from around the world seeking shameless adult-only fun
00:42But times changed visitors lost interest in gambling
00:47Vegas needed a new look
00:49Pool parties DJs concert venues and huge sports events now make up new Vegas
01:00Almost three-quarters of the many billions of dollars pouring into the city and now spent on entertainment and hospitality
01:08I'm Tid on D and I've come to investigate how this fresh new image is changing Las Vegas for those heading here to party
01:15Welcome to the world's largest sports book. I have never seen anything like this and
01:21To find out how the Vegas update has affected people who live and work here
01:27She wasn't breathing. We're trying to wake her up. Do we know what drug she's on? Oh my gosh
01:31I remember just coming out of a complete blackness. They came and ran through my room and took what they wanted
01:36In Sin City the stakes are high
01:41Who's holding all the cards and at what cost? What is the city doing in the middle of this desert?
01:47It's exclusively built on losers money
01:50It's like the Hunger Games basically. That's how we live here in Vegas. It's the casino owners and the
01:56Celebrities they get to live their lives peacefully while we're out here trying to survive
02:06I'm with fellow Brit Joel in a limo on the Las Vegas Strip. I love this job
02:16You've got loads of accessories. You've got
02:19Yeah, the money gun over there. The money gun. Yeah. Can I use it? Yeah, of course. Shoot. There we go
02:25That's really fun. I'm not gonna lie
02:28You've got all the alcohol sometimes girls on here as well. Whatever you need. Really? Yeah, of course
02:32It's no place like Vegas. I was working in central London
02:37I had a friend who offered me a parole to sell party bus tickets in the Vegas Strip
02:42I decided to quit my job book a one-way ticket and
02:46Yeah, the rest is history. When was that? That was ten years ago now
02:50As a VIP party promoter Joel is the perfect person to tell me how Vegas and its visitors are changing
02:57We had some big clients in last year one of my favorite ones where they were adult entertainment stars
03:04We had topless bartenders. We had a DJ in there. We had a naked sushi table
03:10The next day they then hide a helicopter with a machine gun outside and we went and shot some targets in the desert up on a mountain
03:16What yeah anything's possible in Vegas?
03:19I think
03:20I keep hearing about this new Vegas. Can you tell me a little bit about it?
03:24There's definitely been a rise of new pool parties new new nightclubs rising and then a lot of sports franchises
03:31Which have popped up and it's attracted a lot of the Brits because obviously the Brits love sport
03:35People tend to come to me and lean on me for my experience. They go. What would you recommend?
03:39And honestly the pool parties and the partying is just number one at the minute for me
03:43That is that's what everyone come here for
03:45In the past gambling was what attracted most visitors
03:52But traditional gaming revenue has been falling
03:56To appeal to a new generation
04:00The casino resorts have gone all out on entertainment
04:03Before they open to tourists. I'm visiting a dayclub on the strip that hosts pool parties
04:16Hi, nice to meet you nice to meet you, too. I'm tear Jamil. What a place to work. Oh, man
04:22It's it's a beautiful place every day is a party
04:25Right now we're on our mezzanine and this is where our cabanas are staged. So with these sort of VIP booths
04:33We get a lot of VIPs in here really they range anywhere from three to five K just really depending on the day
04:40Have you seen the party scene in Vegas change over time? Well, the beach clubs have they definitely have
04:45Grown my clientele ranges from you know athletes actors
04:51Businessmen and women to your everyday party goers. So really the clientele here is people with money. Yeah, you'll see you'll see a lot of those guys
05:05The average price of our day bids go anywhere from
05:11500 to
05:13$2,000 it just really depends on what event is going on in town and then if you really want to you know spend some money
05:21We have our bungalows you have your own
05:25Waitress your own TV your own dipping pool so you don't have to join the
05:30Mass crowd that you know this pool brings
05:33On a big holiday weekend these bungalows can actually go
05:37Upwards to $20,000 that's expensive. I would say for me anyway
05:43You'll be surprised at how many of those we actually sell do you have a rough idea of how much money a pool party can generate?
05:51I would say upwards to the million dollar day
05:55It's the feminine energy
05:57A lot of people drinking a lot of people dancing. It's completely packed and it's a place to have fun
06:16Runs inside of me
06:26Dayclubs like this have helped Vegas generate 16 billion dollars a year in revenue from entertainment and hospitality
06:34items
06:48Gambling still has its place so and is worth more than five billion dollars a year
06:55God set a facilitator
06:56facelift too. These modern slot machines are designed to appeal to a young crowd.
07:05I want $159! Gone are the buckets of coins. Now you can pay through cashless mobile apps.
07:16Something research shows makes it easier to spend more money than intended.
07:22I lost. Now I only have 10 cents. All my money's gone. So it's easy to see how, in a few seconds,
07:33with a few clicks, you can lose it all.
07:37At one time, the casino resorts were controlled by local businessmen and the Mafia.
07:51Much of New Vegas, though, is owned and operated by two corporate giants, Caesars Entertainment
07:58and MGM Resorts.
08:03In Nevada, there is no income tax to fund services like roads or hospitals.
08:08Instead, the state is run largely on money from the casinos.
08:14A tax on the cash we spend partying and gambling is what props the city up.
08:20In 2024, these taxes added up to $1.2 billion.
08:27The Las Vegas police are funded by the local authorities, but they get most of their money from property
08:34taxes paid by, you've guessed it, the casino owners.
08:39Hi, Brian. It's Ty. I'm just outside the Plaza Hotel.
08:43I'd like to know how these huge taxes affect the power balance in the city.
08:47Hi. Hi. Pleasure to meet you.
08:49How are you doing?
08:50Brian Joseph is an investigative journalist who lives in Las Vegas and has written a book exposing a darker side to the city.
08:59How important are the casinos in Vegas?
09:02It's very well recognized in this town that the casinos are the most important thing here.
09:07The way that the state supports itself is primarily through casino revenues and the most important casinos are the ones on the strip.
09:14So you could definitely argue that the entire economy of the state is dependent on those few miles of the strip and being continually a money generator.
09:23The rule of mob bosses has led to the rule of the casino bosses, and that is who really are the power players here.
09:29There are elected politicians. There are various administrators.
09:33They pale in comparison to the people who run the casinos.
09:36It's their money. It's their campaign donations.
09:38Without the support of casino leadership, you know, you're not going to move far in this town politically.
09:44As in, if you don't have the support of casinos, you're not going to be able to run for mayor or...
09:50You're not going to win. You can run.
09:51I mean, this is the United States. You can always run, but you're not going to win.
09:55That's actually crazy to me that casinos can have such a stronghold over a place.
09:59Do you think that this new Vegas is sort of cleaning up its act?
10:03Vegas has a reputation to maintain as a place that tourists want to come.
10:08And so as a result, there's an incentive to sweep some rather unappealing things under the rug.
10:14And that all reflects the fact that Vegas is trying to maintain its image.
10:24And that image is threatened by criminal activity.
10:28I've seen a notice sent to the casinos in June 2025 from the Gaming Control Board and the Las Vegas Metro Police.
10:37It outlines their potential concerns over drug dealing, violence, sexual assault, theft and other crimes happening at pool parties and nightclubs.
10:48They acknowledge proactive steps taken to prevent incidents but threaten disciplinary action for venues with persistent problems.
10:57They say they want to protect Nevada's reputation as a safe and enjoyable tourist destination.
11:05Hi, Josh. Thank you so much for meeting me today.
11:10Josh claims he was a victim of a crime at a hotel on the Strip.
11:15We thought, hey, let's go to a pool party.
11:20Let's see some live music, you know, have some fun.
11:24We're just finishing our first drink.
11:28Music's playing, starting to get a little busier and I start to feel a little woozy.
11:36And then that's when things went south.
11:40I remember waking up in my room about seven to eight hours later in a panic mode, just coming out of a complete blackness, not knowing where my stuff is.
11:49What happened to your girlfriend?
11:50She finally calls like, hey, I woke up in the hospital bed.
11:54I'm pretty sure we were drugged at the pool party.
11:57Thankfully, one of the lifeguards, he noticed that we had gotten separated and she was being super intoxicated, like falling over.
12:04And the lifeguard just pulled her out.
12:07She was with two other men at the time.
12:09That's really, really scary.
12:11They ambulanced her to the local hospital.
12:14So I couldn't imagine, you know, how scared she was waking up in a cot in the hallway.
12:20Josh's father, Ralph, was also in Vegas with him.
12:25They asked the hotel if there was any CCTV of Josh returning that evening.
12:31The cameras captured him being walked to the hotel by two women he didn't recognise.
12:38I was like slumped over in between both of them.
12:42They're carrying him in with him in the middle and walking around, you know, with wiggly legs and then showed him go into the room and then came out like four and a half minutes later.
12:52So you were robbed by these two women?
12:55Yes.
12:55I had some clothes missing, some cash.
12:58They came and, you know, ran through my room and took what they wanted.
13:02And you could see their faces in the CCTV?
13:04Yes, yes.
13:05That sort of thing could be used and brought to the police.
13:08They said they weren't able to release it to us.
13:11They just let us see it.
13:13So we ended up not going and filling out an actual police report.
13:17Really? Why?
13:18They say that police, they just mark it up as a typical day in Vegas that they don't take it that serious.
13:25They're just like, yeah, you're in Vegas, you know, what do you expect?
13:28You know, there's really nothing you can do.
13:30And did you ever get in touch with the hotel that was holding the pool party?
13:34Yeah, they declined to comment.
13:37The family were frustrated and felt that the incident was being swept under the carpet.
13:42So they posted about it online.
13:45After this experience, I did get a lot of people sharing their same similar story.
13:53Oh, wow.
13:54Oh, yeah.
13:55They're novels.
13:56A similar thing happened to my friend.
13:58We know who drugged us.
14:00There was a group of several guys involved.
14:02It was a very organized operation.
14:05Another gentleman was out here for his 21st birthday and they got his bank account for $3,000.
14:11You know, one lady woke up at the hospital and all of her gold and jewelry were gone.
14:15It's so scary.
14:16It was.
14:17It's really scary.
14:19We asked the Las Vegas Metro Police if they had any data on the number of drink spiking
14:26reports they received.
14:28But they declined to comment.
14:31We also put the issues raised in this documentary to the Nevada Resort Association.
14:39But no one responded to our letter.
14:43As a city known for its party scene, Las Vegas is no stranger to illegal drugs like cocaine
15:05and MDMA.
15:08While these can lead to overdoses and even death, there's a much more dangerous drug in
15:13the mix, too.
15:15I'm heading out with Guardian Elite, a private ambulance team supporting the city's emergency
15:21services, who are on call for nearly 3 million residents and over 40 million visitors a year.
15:27Hi, Sam.
15:28Nice to meet you.
15:29I'm here.
15:30Hey, Sam.
15:31We've got our medical gear.
15:32We've got a monitor.
15:33They're on the front line of a fentanyl epidemic.
15:35A synthetic opioid, 50 times more potent and deadly than heroin.
15:40And hitting American cities like Las Vegas, hard.
15:44We're going to go into downtown Las Vegas.
15:46We're going to go out and wait for calls for service.
15:513-6-1, I'll be available for the day.
15:533-6-1, I'll be available for the day.
16:00A call happens here in Vegas probably every 30 seconds.
16:02Every 30 seconds?
16:03Yeah, as a city, we respond to several hundred thousand calls for service every year.
16:07So do you guys work alongside the 911 ambulance services?
16:11the 911 ambulance services you know sometimes the 911 system gets so overloaded that they have
16:16to call us in for backup sam's also carrying medicine called narcan which reverses the effect
16:24of an opioid overdose do you see a lot of drug overdoses here we do i mean vegas is a very party
16:35town so we'll see a lot of alcohol issues a lot of drug issues you know one of the problems with
16:41drugs that we find here is that you know you may think you're doing something whether it be
16:47ecstasy or cocaine but a lot of times these drugs are cut with something else i recently had a case
16:53where we were called to evaluate a female at a festival became unresponsive her friend told us
16:58she was doing cocaine but typically cocaine won't do that to you we also woke her up with some narcan
17:04and so we highly suspected that the cocaine was laced with fentanyl that's terrifying
17:11as the sun starts to set we'll start seeing the downtown area start coming alive
17:16right now is the busy time where we tend to see more call volume
17:25we just got alerted that there's a female who is uh possibly overdosing um in her car
17:31i hope she's okay
17:37just up here i have a feeling it's that car right there we're the first at the scene oh my gosh
17:42hey what's going on she wasn't breathing i wish i need to wake her up her lips are falling blue
17:48i know what it looked like okay she's got a pulse do we know what drug she's on
17:53oh yeah she's got a pulse not breathing she's cyanotic apneic she's got pinpoint pupils wake up
18:06oh it's absolutely awful
18:20coming 301 in route you need those or just this this is definitely the side of vegas that you don't
18:24really realize exists until you see it yourself your heart rate of one of uh 124.
18:31all right i marked your uh narcan both of them on your monitor as a generic event
18:46well done thank you what happened some kind of narcotic um i'm not 100 sure i mean we can speculate
18:55that maybe she overdosed on something um you know the signs point to it the fact that we gave her
19:00narcan she started to wake up with the narcan the fact that she had pinpoint pupils she had
19:04you know cyanotic lips possibly heroin possibly fentanyl but we didn't find any drugs in the car
19:10she didn't have the needle in her arm so we really don't know is she breathing now so she is
19:15yeah it was quite shocking to me i think when i came to vegas i had a perception that it was going
19:20to be you know this glamorous fun glitzy place and i'm slowly starting to learn that
19:28you know there's a bit of an underbelly there's definitely a dark underside of vegas that most
19:34people uh you know don't see
19:44just two milligrams of fentanyl can be lethal
19:48if as sam says drugs like cocaine are frequently being cut with it
19:52that's something i need to look into hello hi melanie rouse is the clark county coroner
20:00she investigates drug deaths in vegas and works on an opiate task force assessing the impact of
20:07drug abuse in and around the city when we first started seeing fentanyl in the market we started
20:14seeing it adulterated drugs so people would purchase one drug and end up with fentanyl in it
20:20which ended up being fatal a lot of tourists do they come here they buy drugs and it ends
20:26up that there's fentanyl in their drugs is that something that you've seen before we have seen
20:30that typically what you will find is that people that are purchasing drugs here may not know exactly
20:36what they are getting we see what is commonly called m30s so those are pills designed to look
20:42exactly like morphine tablets look but really they're they're fake pressed and they contain fentanyl
20:47you're also going to see those in xanitabs they look just like a xanax bar but they often contain
20:53fentanyl and then you also have methamphetamine that is often adulterated with fentanyl what we've
20:58now seen is a shift where fentanyl has become people's drug of choice so people are actually going
21:03out and seeking to use fentanyl knowing that it's a dangerous substance and knowing that it can cause
21:09death does that tend to be tourists or people who live in vegas i'd say it's a combination of both
21:14populations so it is people that reside here as well as people that come here and seek to obtain
21:19drugs we had over 600 opiate related fatalities that occurred from october of 23 to august of 24.
21:28compared to the rest of the states in the u.s how does vegas rank in terms of drug related deaths
21:34what we're experiencing across the country seems to be a decline in drug related fatalities
21:39um unfortunately that's not a trend that we're seeing here in southern nevada ours is still increasing
21:55i want to find out just how widespread the use of drugs are on the party scene
22:02willem is a former club promoter
22:04hi nice to meet you who knows more than most about the darker side to partying in the city
22:13is the demand quite high in vegas would you say for drugs absolutely yeah vegas is an interesting
22:20place because of our tourism for some years i was a strip club promoter okay so i was sending groups to
22:27to the strip club and you know if you had a group of 10 guys that wanted to go to the strip club they're
22:32going to party you know what i mean so the tourists are willing to pay a lot of money for the drugs
22:37depending on what part of the world they come from was there like a particular kind of group that stood
22:42out australian bachelor parties yeah the australians really that surprises me yeah what about the brits
22:50the brits um yeah definitely brit yeah they um they like cocaine yeah there's there's a lot of drugs here
22:59yeah william's own struggle with drugs began as it has for millions of americans when he was prescribed
23:08opiate painkillers by his doctor
23:13this city has been a roller coaster for me personally i became addicted to heroin and when you develop a
23:21habit that's costing you a thousand dollars a day usually selling drugs is the the best option
23:28unfortunately so i used to sell drugs here in baby did you what sort of drugs were you selling if
23:35you don't mind me asking heroin meth uh cocaine ecstasy xanax
23:43i would sell to friends other people that were in my circle that were using um and then yeah tourists
23:51i've been sober for uh two years now how long were you using for would you say for over over 20 years
24:01i got to vegas when i was a sophomore in high school and i was addicted by the time i was a senior so
24:08yeah would you say that it's quite easy to get addicted to drugs in vegas have you seen that happen
24:13to a lot of people it's easy to get addicted to drugs anywhere but with the amount of tourism that we
24:18have and the amount of money that flows through the city there is a higher demand for drugs on the
24:23strip so as a teenager or a young person drugs are an issue here william says he never sold fentanyl
24:33but its arrival in vegas turned his life upside down there's a fentanyl issue across america
24:40but vegas definitely got hit hard it was showing up in cocaine and you know other drugs people that
24:51were not intending to use fentanyl they were od and dying i transitioned from heroin to fentanyl in 2019
25:012020. i was functional on heroin for 20 years but when i started using fentanyl my life completely fell
25:08apart within about a year of starting to use fentanyl i found myself homeless wow um i ended up on las
25:16vegas boulevard homeless for almost two years year and a half two years
25:27there's a lot of low points over a 25-year addiction this was definitely one of my low points
25:34america's america's opioid crisis kills tens of thousands of people a year since 2021 it's been
25:43the leading cause of death for americans aged between 18 and 45. in vegas fentanyl's impact
25:51has felt across the city even around the glicks and glamour of the strip
25:55we are just off las vegas boulevard at the diamond inn motel we are literally just steps away from the
26:07tourist corridor you know mandalay bay is right across the street this was a convenient place to
26:13buy and use drugs you know that was right next to where you know you could easily go and make money
26:19this is where i spent the majority of the the last couple of years of my addiction
26:27got arrested here multiple times watched people overdose saved some people from overdosing here
26:35with how dangerous fentanyl is and for those types of drugs to be in such close proximity to
26:42the tourists that's a dangerous combination there's a misconception about drug addicts
26:50the people that are out here on the streets are not terrible people
26:54addiction is a monster society has kind of brushed them aside
26:59with drug deaths in nevada rising fentanyl clearly poses a massive problem for the city
27:17i'd like to know what life's like for young people growing up here
27:22champion is willing to do what no one else is willing to do
27:25that means keeping my mind body and spirit clean as well as physical training steve bow's boxing gym
27:32offers support to young residents of vegas drugs and alcohol good for you guys we've lost two
27:39kids in the last few few months right to fentanyl overdose and they have died anybody recognize this
27:46what's this guys it's a vape what are drug dealers doing with vapes i want to guess make it all color
27:53and shine you don't know what's in here i'll tell you it's fentanyl this killed one of our kids
27:58had everything going for him starts like this and it ends like the poor homeless people that you see
28:04outside everywhere the choices that you're going to make over the next couple years are going to be
28:09critical you need help come talk to me talk to your parents we're here i'm a counselor man you're upset
28:16depressed you know what you do you come hit the bags as hard as you can are you ready let's go hit
28:35what do you know about how dangerous fentanyl is fentanyl is probably the most dangerous drug there
28:41is have you seen a lot of people taking it yeah people die um you just you walk down the street
28:48you'll see people just sitting just stiff can't move because they're off the fentanyl
28:56nothing good comes it tore up my family really fentanyl tore up my family
29:01my uncle passed away from that that's not me you know i want to stay away from that and
29:05i want to make something of myself
29:11it really helped a lot of kids introduce them to boxing talking about good grades staying away
29:17from drugs and alcohol making good choices so they have a good life so it's almost like a boxing
29:23rehabilitation program yes that's exactly what it is i would say 90 of my job is counseling and mentoring
29:30i'm not trying to find a champion boxer i'm trying to find champion people
29:36make sure you get those hands up i'm coming beautiful poverty is a risk factor for overdoses
29:43from opioids like fentanyl despite the billions of dollars pouring in on the strip one in eight
29:50vegas residents live below the poverty line 20 percent higher than the national average
29:55as a 15 year old it was easy for me to go get a firearm a pistol as a 15 year old then it was for
30:02me to go get a job is that something that you did yes i went down the wrong path i went into the streets
30:08did drugs alcohol the party life and i just gave up in life completely i sobered up eight years ago from
30:14everything and i chose this gym because coach bow he does stuff for troubled kids that i didn't have
30:19i watched my best friend overdose in front of me when i was 15 he was 14 off of xanax pills we fell
30:25asleep and we woke up and he was blue blue to the face i'm so sorry that must have been really hard
30:32a lot of the kids you've seen that were here went through similar things as me
30:35that's how it is here in vegas either we're losing a friend from gang violence to prison to
30:39overdosing i think people have a perception of vegas which is that it's very glamorous there's a lot of
30:45glitz there's a lot of money pumped into it they like to focus everything into the entertainment
30:50so they can bring money in they don't care they leave us to the side it's like the hunger games
30:54basically that's how we live here in vegas it's the casino owners and the celebrities they get to
31:00live their lives peacefully while we're out here trying to survive and a lot of kids are suffering
31:05because of it there you put your hands in let's go one two three
31:11go boxing excellent class today guys you gave me chills man appreciate your hard work incredible young
31:18people
31:27the casino industry paid billions in taxes supports charities and runs foundations set up to benefit
31:34local communities
31:40but with drug deaths rising it's clear the city still has big challenges to overcome
31:56the ground the clock parties and global music stars aren't the only big plays las vegas has made
32:08to attract new visitors
32:12looking forward to what's going to be great week of rugby over there
32:14look out vegas sport is at the heart of the city's new image
32:24from the super bowl as a kid i dream about these moments that i'm actually out here
32:30to formula one the high demand for tickets has proven that this is an event no one will forget
32:36ufc the return of the notorious conor mcgregor in las vegas nevada boxing this is the biggest fight in a
32:44decade and even ice hockey you wouldn't call vegas a traditional hockey market but the buildings filled
32:50with fans every night in less than 10 years vegas has gone from having no professional sports teams
32:56to becoming a host for some of the world's biggest sporting events
33:04which generate almost two billion dollars a year for the city
33:16and where there is sport there will be a market for sports betting too
33:21which the casinos have embraced in full vegas style
33:26circa is one of the newest in town they say they have the world's largest sports book or bookies
33:33welcome to circa there's a lot to look at right
33:40this is a three-story thousand capacity venue facing a huge 145 foot wide screen
33:47that broadcast multiple live sports from across the world
33:50i have never seen anything like this it's massive mike palm is president of operations here
34:02we've been operating six years here we've seen our sports business really expand exponentially
34:07over that time as it's become more mainstream it's now a big regulated industry that you have most of
34:14the casinos involved in would you say that sports betting has become more popular than classic
34:19gambling i think it's different for different companies i think table games is sort of phasing
34:25out because it's very labor intensive and as we continue to increase the minimum wage and the cost of
34:30health care the cost to employ a worker raises so much that it really cuts into the margin of table games
34:37so sports which can be done in a big setting like this but also on our phones right we have these big
34:43beautiful books but still over 80 percent of the bets come from mobile obviously the infrastructure
34:48cost is less once you get by the tech of having to employ so many people so i think sports is rising
34:53as table games is declining a recent poll the american gaming association showed close to 60
35:00million americans said they placed a wager on a sporting event in the last year that number even
35:05five years ago would have been 30 million so obviously that's a big increasing market we see the
35:09influence of folks that came from playing daily fantasy sports like fantasy football now converting
35:15into sports betters and by mixing sports with the city's pool party culture circa have created what
35:23has to be the most glamorous bookies in the world stadium swim is a day club that's also a bookies with a 40
35:33foot outdoor screen it's the dj and people are day drinking and having fun and people are in a pool
35:42and they're watching all the beautiful bodies at the same time the kiosks are down there to make your
35:47bets or if you have a phone account nfl sundays three thousand people up there three thousand up there
35:54and they pay ten thousand for a cabana wow they pay five thousand for a seat in the sports book on an nfl
35:59sunday people say that's an outrageous price i would say yes but if they pay it is it i mean that's what
36:04the demand is the casino's own betting app lets visitors place bets on their phones from the poolside
36:16gambling on digital devices has become the norm
36:1970 percent of all bets on sport in the world were made from a mobile device in 2023
36:30slicker tech and sports are just two ways vegas is revamping gambling in the city
36:36but as one in 12 americans who bet either have or could develop a gambling problem there's a flip side
36:43to the fun they say in the 12-step group that i go to there's only three options for a gambler
36:50who doesn't stop it's prison insanity or death celebrities are promoting their favorite sports
36:55book or casino everywhere you look rob minick is an ex-gambling addict turned campaigner
37:02sports betting was his gateway to a life-changing addiction now he warns others of the dangers
37:09and i hope that you don't go down the same path that i do when i started i was just gambling with
37:14my friends on just fantasy football and early on it kind of went well like there were some wins along
37:20the way but i wanted things faster than my friends did and i wanted more action and within a month i
37:25was already doing regular sports betting and in america that's three years under age and i was lying
37:30about my address my age trying to just get as many bets as in as i could and i wouldn't stop until the
37:35middle of the night it was a compulsion after a month as you develop a problem what happens is you
37:41start to isolate and you start to lie about it to friends and family i mean the number of times i would
37:45run off to the bathroom to check on bets or place bets it was incredible and there was a certain shame
37:50to that but i couldn't stop because to me as i developed the addiction it wasn't just about feeling
37:56adrenaline anymore it's just about feeling okay my brain had literally rewired itself to the point that
38:01i only cared about getting that next bed in the nevada resorts association say casinos have all signed
38:10up to the responsible gaming initiative and take a proactive approach to identifying and helping problem
38:16gamblers but what about when someone's gambling becomes a problem for the casino we got another half a
38:30million here we're looking at roughly nine and a half million this is mickey mace a notorious vegas gambler
38:39he claims to have won over 32 million valentine's day 5.7 million and some change he helps mega stars
38:48like drake and lil baby win big 25 hands only lose one thanks for my man his exploits attracted over a
38:57quarter of a million followers on social media and at first won the goodwill of the casinos
39:03but he claims when he won too much he fell out of favor with the casinos who no longer welcome him on the strip
39:14i've come out to the desert to meet him
39:16hello how you doing good thanks how are you good i'm tier nice to meet you mickey what a pleasure
39:37what did you come here for originally i was just living the young rich bachelor life looking for
39:43things to do like i love to gamble i love debauchery i love like chaos and so you came to vegas you started
39:49gambling were you winning big the end of my career i was winning a net profit of a million dollars a
39:54week a million dollars a week right and how do the high rollers in vegas live my lifestyle as a
40:01high roller in vegas was quite lavish they would give me private jets they would give me helicopter rides
40:07anywhere i wanted they gave me a maybach with a chauffeur they gave me a rolls royce with a chauffeur
40:11i lived for free in these private villas who's they the casinos they gave all of that to you
40:16correct they'll do anything really to accommodate you staying in that building specifically at the
40:21table as long as possible the casinos do a lot of things some are obvious and some aren't there's no
40:27clocks they are constantly keeping the temperature cold to keep people awake give you free alcohol to
40:33keep everybody making bad moral decisions if you go into any of the casinos today you'll see that every
40:39hallway is just slightly curved and the reason for that is they want to subconsciously direct you to
40:44certain places to spend money or lose money so you think that casinos are designed to help people to
40:49lose 100 but i saw through it and i kept winning there was a tipping point and each casino had their
40:56own threshold for financial pain and as each one ticked away i'd get banned one at a time from each casino
41:02so you sort of went from being the casino's best client to not being allowed back in at all i was
41:10actually never a good client i was their most hopeful client the amounts that i was winning they assumed
41:16over long term i'd give all that money back and then some but that never happened and now i'm banned
41:21at almost every casino in the world is that legal is that a thing yeah it's private business and they
41:26could refuse service for any reason or no reason these casinos were built exclusively on losers this
41:31whole city is built in the middle of the desert as far as you can see there's nothingness what is the
41:38city doing in the middle of this desert it's exclusively built on losers money
41:50so far in vegas i've seen how the casino industry have successfully transformed the city
41:55and why this new image would be so appealing to a younger generation of tourists
42:03but i've discovered a darker side too how crime and the lethal drug fentanyl have infiltrated the
42:09party scene and claims that protecting its image might be keeping the real las vegas under wraps
42:17next time i'm going to dig a bit deeper they don't want the violence to be known of what goes on here
42:24this is our area bro i told you i discover a side of vegas most tourists won't see we serve 800 trays
42:33of food a day there's someone in there they're checking it now i go underground to meet people
42:39living beneath the city how do you find it living down here out of sight out of mind out of sight out of
42:46minds and i find out how the city's rebrand like it's not safe for us right now has impacted its famous
42:55sex industry what they're doing is really pushing sex workers further underground and that's a perfect
43:01storm there's kind of a saying we have people come to vegas to kill sex workers
43:20so
43:28so
43:34so
43:40so
43:45so
43:47so
43:49so
43:51so
43:53so
43:55so
43:57so
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