- 2 days ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00So I have a bit of a surprise for you.
00:02It's not that green limo, is it?
00:05That sexy green hummus up there.
00:07It's all for you.
00:16Woo!
00:18Las Vegas.
00:20A neon playground in the middle of a desert
00:22in the US state of Nevada.
00:26Known as Sin City,
00:27this has long been a place for gamblers chasing their luck.
00:315.7 million and some change.
00:34And tourists from around the world
00:37seeking shameless adult-only fun.
00:41But times changed.
00:44Visitors lost interest in gambling.
00:47Vegas needed a new look.
00:50Pool parties, DJs, concert venues
00:54and huge sports events
00:56now make up New Vegas.
01:00Almost three-quarters of the many billions of dollars
01:03pouring into the city
01:04are now spent on entertainment and hospitality.
01:08I'm Tia Dondi and I've come to investigate
01:11how this fresh new image is changing Las Vegas
01:14for those heading here to party.
01:16Welcome to the world's largest sports book.
01:18I have never seen anything like this.
01:21And to find out how the Vegas update
01:24has affected people who live and work here.
01:27She wasn't breathing.
01:28Do we know what drug she's on?
01:30I remember just coming out of a complete blackness.
01:34They came and ran through my room
01:36and took what they wanted.
01:38In Sin City, the stakes are high.
01:41Who's holding all the cards?
01:43And at what cost?
01:44What 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.
01:52That's how we live here in Vegas.
01:54The casino owners and the celebrities,
01:57they get to live their lives peacefully
01:59while we're out here trying to survive.
02:11I'm with fellow Brit, Joel,
02:12in a limo on the Las Vegas Strip.
02:15I love this job.
02:17You've got loads of accessories.
02:19Yeah, the money gun over there.
02:20The money gun. Can I use it?
02:22Yeah, of course, shoot.
02:23There we go.
02:25That's really fun, I'm not going to lie.
02:28You've got all the alcohol.
02:29Sometimes girls on here as well, whatever you need.
02:31Really?
02:32Yeah, of course.
02:33It's no place like Vegas.
02:34I was working in central London.
02:37I had a friend who offered me a role
02:38to sell party bus tickets in the Vegas Strip.
02:42I decided to quit my job, book a one-way ticket,
02:45and, yeah, the rest is history.
02:47When was that?
02:48That was ten years ago now.
02:51As a VIP party promoter,
02:53Joel is the perfect person to tell me
02:55how Vegas and its visitors are changing.
02:59We had some big clients in last year.
03:01One of my favourite ones,
03:02they were adult entertainment stars.
03:04We had topless bartenders.
03:06We had a DJ in there.
03:08We had a naked sushi table.
03:10The next day they then hired a helicopter
03:12with a machine gun outside
03:13and we went and shot some targets in the desert
03:15up on a mountain.
03:16What?
03:17Yeah.
03:18Anything's possible in Vegas.
03:20I keep hearing about this new Vegas.
03:23Can you tell me a little bit about it?
03:24There's definitely been a rise of new pool parties,
03:27new nightclubs rising,
03:29and then a lot of sports franchises
03:31which have popped up,
03:32and it's attracted a lot of the Brits
03:33because, obviously, the Brits love sport.
03:35People tend to come to me and lean on me
03:37for my experience.
03:38They go, what would you recommend?
03:40Honestly, the pool parties and the partying
03:41is number one at the minute for me.
03:43Really?
03:43That's what everyone come here for.
03:47In the past,
03:48gambling was what attracted most visitors.
03:52But traditional gaming revenue has been falling.
03:56To appeal to a new generation,
03:59the casino resorts have gone all out on entertainment.
04:10Before they opened to tourists,
04:11I'm visiting a day club on the Strip that hosts pool parties.
04:16Hi, nice to meet you.
04:18Hello. Nice to meet you, too.
04:19I'm Tyr.
04:20Jamil.
04:20What a place to work.
04:22Oh, man, it's a beautiful place.
04:24Every day is a party.
04:26Right now, we're on our mezzanine,
04:28and this is where our cabanas are staged.
04:31So, are these sort of VIP booths?
04:33We get a lot of VIPs in here.
04:34Really?
04:35They range anywhere from 3 to 5K,
04:37just really depending on the day.
04:39Have you seen the party scene in Vegas change over time?
04:42Well, the beach clubs, they definitely have grown.
04:46My clientele ranges from, you know, athletes, actors,
04:51businessmen and women, to your everyday party goers.
04:54So, really, the clientele here is people with money.
04:58Yeah, you'll see a lot of those guys.
05:05The average price of our day beds go anywhere from $500 to $2,000.
05:13It just really depends on what event is going on in town.
05:17And then, if you really want to, you know, spend some money,
05:21we have our bungalows.
05:22You have your own waitress, your own TV, your own dipping pool,
05:28so you don't have to join the mass crowd that, you know,
05:32this pool brings.
05:33On a big holiday weekend,
05:35these bungalows can actually go upwards to $20,000.
05:39That's expensive, I would say.
05:41For me, anyway.
05:43Yeah, you'd be surprised at how many of those we actually sell.
05:46Do you have a rough idea of how much money a pool party can generate?
05:51I would say upwards to a million dollar a day.
05:55It's the feminine energy.
05:59Feminine energy.
06:01Feminine energy.
06:04Feminine energy.
06:06Feminine energy.
06:08Feminine energy.
06:08Feminine energy.
06:10Feminine energy.
06:17Feminine energy.
06:19Feminine energy.
06:21Feminine energy.
06:23Feminine energy.
06:25Feminine energy.
06:25Feminine energy.
06:26Feminine energy.
06:26Feminine energy.
06:28Feminine energy.
06:29Feminine energy.
06:35Feminine energy.
06:39Feminine energy.
06:48me gambling still has its place though and is worth more than five billion dollars a year
06:55but that's had a facelift too
07:01these modern slot machines are designed to appeal to a young crowd
07:11gone are the buckets of coins now you can pay through cashless mobile apps something research
07:19shows makes it easier to spend more money than intended I lost now I only have 10 cents all my
07:29money's gone so it's easy to see how in a few seconds with a few clicks you can lose it
07:35all
07:46at one time the casino resorts were controlled by local businessmen and the Mafia much of New Vegas
07:53though is owned and operated by two corporate giants Caesars Entertainment and MGM Resorts
08:02in Nevada there is no income tax to fund services like roads or hospitals instead the state is run
08:10largely on money from the casinos a tax on the cash we spend partying and gambling is what props
08:18the city up in 2024 these taxes added up to 1.2 billion dollars the Las Vegas police are funded
08:29by the local authorities but they get most of their money from property taxes paid by you've guessed it
08:36the casino owners hi Brian it's here I'm just outside the Plaza Hotel I'd like to know how these huge
08:44taxes affect the power balance in the city hi hi pleasure to meet you doing Brian Joseph is an
08:52investigative 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 it's very well recognized in this town that the casinos are
09:05the most important thing here the way that the state supports itself is primarily through casino
09:11revenues and the most important casinos are the ones on the strip so you could definitely argue that the
09:16entire economy of the state is dependent on those few miles of the strip and being continually a money
09:21generator the rule of mob bosses has led to the rule of the casino bosses and and that is who
09:27really
09:27are the power players here there are elected politicians there are various administrators they
09:34pale in comparison to the people who run the casinos it's their money it's their campaign donations
09:39it's without the support of casino leadership you know you're not going to move far in this town
09:43politically as in if you don't have the support of casinos you're not going to be able to
09:49run for mayor or you're not going to win you can run I mean that's this is the United States
09:53you
09:53can can always run but you're not going to win that's actually crazy to me that casinos can have
09:57such a stronghold over a place do 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 and so as a result there's
10:09an
10:09incentive to sweep some rather unappealing things under the rug and that all reflects the fact that
10:15Vegas is trying to maintain its image and that image is threatened by criminal activity I've seen
10:29a notice sent to the casinos in June 2025 from the gaming control board and the Las Vegas Metro Police
10:38it outlines their potential concerns over drug dealing violence sexual assault theft and other
10:45crimes happening at pool parties and nightclubs they acknowledge proactive steps taken to prevent
10:52incidents but threaten disciplinary action for venues with persistent problems
10:58they say they want to protect Nevada's reputation as a safe and enjoyable tourist destination
11:07hi Josh thank you so much for meeting me today Josh claims he was a victim of a crime at
11:14a hotel on the strip
11:17we thought hey let's go to a pool party let's see some live music you know have some fun we're
11:25just
11:25finishing our first drink music's playing starting to get a little busier and I start to feel a little
11:34woozy and then that's when things went south I remember waking up in my room about seven to eight
11:43hours later in a panic mode just coming out of a complete blackness not knowing where my stuff is
11:49what happened to your girlfriend she finally calls like hey I woke up in the hospital bed I'm pretty sure
11:56we were drugged at the pool party thankfully one of the lifeguards he noticed that we had gotten
12:01separated and she was being super intoxicated like falling over and the lifeguard just pulled her out
12:07she was with two other men at the time that's really really scary they ambulanced her to the local
12:13hospital so I couldn't imagine you know how scared she was waking up on a in a cot in the
12:19hallway
12:21Josh's father Ralph was also in Vegas with him they asked the hotel if there was any CCTV of Josh
12:29returning
12:30that evening the cameras captured him being walked to the hotel by two women he didn't recognize I was
12:40like slumped over in between both of them they're carrying him in with him in the middle and walking
12:45around you know with wiggly legs and then showed him go into the room and it came out like four
12:52and
12:52minutes later so you were robbed by these two women yes I had some clothes missing some cash they came
12:59and you know ran through my room and took what they wanted and you could see their faces in the
13:03CCTV yes
13:04yes that sort of thing could be used and brought to the place they said they weren't able to release
13:10it to us they just let us see it so we ended up not going to and feeling out an
13:16actual police report
13:17really why they say that police they just mark it up as a typical day in Vegas that they're they
13:23don't
13:24take it that serious they're just like oh you're in Vegas you know what do you expect you know there's
13:28really nothing you can do and did you ever get in touch with the hotel that was holding the pool
13:33party
13:34yeah they they declined to comment the family were frustrated and felt that the incident was being
13:41swept under the carpet so they posted about it online after this experience I did get a lot of
13:47people sharing their same similar story oh wow oh yeah they're novels a similar thing happened to my
13:57friend we know who drugged us there was a group of several guys involved it was a very organized
14:04operation another gentleman was out here for his 21st birthday and they got his bank account for
14:10three thousand dollars you know one lady woke up at the hospital and all of her golden jewelry were
14:14gone it's so scary but it was saying it's really scary we asked the Las Vegas Metro Police if they
14:23had
14:23any data on the number of drink spiking reports they receive but they declined to comment
14:34we also put the issues raised in this documentary to the Nevada Resort Association but no one responded to
14:58our letter
14:58as a city known for its party scene Las Vegas is no stranger to illegal drugs like cocaine and MDMA
15:07and while these can lead to overdoses and even death there's a much more dangerous drug in the mix too
15:15I'm heading out with Guardian Elite a private ambulance team supporting the city's emergency
15:20services who are on call for nearly three million residents and over 40 million visitors a year
15:32they're on the front line of a fentanyl epidemic a synthetic opioid 50 times more potent and deadly than
15:40heroin and hitting American cities like Las Vegas hard we're gonna go into downtown Las Vegas we're gonna go
15:47out and wait for calls for service
15:51three six one I'll be available for the day
15:59a call happens here in Vegas probably every 30 seconds every 30 seconds yeah as a city we respond to
16:05several
16:06hundred thousand calls for service every year so do you guys work alongside the 9-1-1 ambulance
16:12services you know sometimes the 9-1-1 system gets so overloaded that they have to call us in
16:16for backup Sam's also carrying medicine called Narcan which reverses the effect of an opioid overdose
16:29do you see a lot of drug overdoses here we do I mean Vegas is a very party town so
16:36we'll see a lot of
16:38alcohol issues a lot of drug issues you know one of the problems with drugs that we find here is
16:43that
16:43yeah you may think you're doing something whether it be ecstasy or cocaine but a lot of times these drugs
16:50are cut with something else I recently had a case where we were called to evaluate a female at a
16:56festival
16:56became unresponsive her friend told us she was doing cocaine but typically cocaine won't do that to you
17:01we also woke her up with some Narcan and so we highly suspected that the cocaine was laced with fentanyl
17:07that's terrifying as the sun starts to set we'll start seeing the downtown area start coming alive
17:15right now is the busy time where we tend to see more call volume
17:24we just got alerted that there's a female who is uh possibly overdosing um in her car
17:32i hope she's okay
17:36just up here
17:38i have a feeling it's that car right there
17:39we're the first at the same
17:41oh my gosh
17:42hey what's going on
17:43she wasn't breathing
17:44i wish i need to wake her up
17:45her lips seem falling blue
17:47keep her straight back
17:48i know what it looked like
17:50okay she's got a pulse
17:51do we know what drug she's on
17:58eh
17:59yeah she's got a pulse not breathing
18:01she's cyanotic apneic
18:03she's got pinpoint pupils
18:05wake up
18:15absolutely awful
18:19cut your one in route
18:21do you think those are just as expected
18:22this is definitely the side of vagus that you don't really realize exists until
18:26you see it yourself
18:29your heart rate of one of 124
18:33all right i marked your uh nar camp both of them on your monitor as a generic event
18:45well done well thank you what happened some kind of narcotic um i'm not 100 sure i mean we can
18:55speculate that maybe she overdosed on something um you know the signs point to it the fact that
19:00we gave her narcan she started to wake up with the narcan the fact that she had pinpoint pupils
19:04she had you know cyanotic lips possibly heroin possibly fentanyl but we didn't find any drugs
19:09in the car she didn't have the needle in her arm so we really don't know is she breathing now
19:14so
19:14she is yeah it was quite shocking to me i think when i came to vegas i had a perception
19:20that it
19:20was gonna be you know this glamorous fun glitzy place and i'm slowly starting to learn that
19:29you 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
19:47if as sam says drugs like cocaine are frequently being cut with it that's something i need to look
19:57into melanie rouse is the clark county coroner she investigates drug deaths in vegas
20:03and works on an opiate task force assessing the impact of drug abuse in and around the city
20:10when we first started seeing fentanyl in the market we started seeing it adulterated drugs so
20:16people would purchase one drug and end up with fentanyl in it um which ended up being fatal a lot
20:22of tourists do they come here they buy drugs and it ends up that there's fentanyl in their drugs is
20:28that something that you've seen before we have seen that um typically what you will find is that people
20:33that are purchasing drugs here may not know exactly what they are getting we see what is commonly called
20:39m30s so those are pills designed to look exactly like morphine tablets look but really they're they're
20:45fake pressed and they contain fentanyl you're also going to see those in xanitabs they look just like a
20:51xanax bar but they often contain fentanyl and then you also have methamphetamine that is often
20:56adulterated with fentanyl what we've now seen is a shift where fentanyl has become people's drug of
21:01choice so people are actually going out and seeking to use fentanyl knowing that it's a dangerous
21:07substance and knowing that it can cause death does that tend to be tourists or people who live in vegas
21:12i'd say it's a combination of both populations so it is people that reside here as well as people that
21:17come
21:18here and seek to obtain drugs we had over 600 opiate related fatalities that occurred from october of
21:2523 to august of 24. compared to the rest of the states in the us how does vegas rank in
21:32terms of
21:32drug-related deaths what we're experiencing across the country seems to be a decline in drug-related
21:38fatalities unfortunately that's not a trend that we're seeing here in southern nevada ours is still
21:54increasing
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
22:06who knows more than most about the darker side to partying in the city
22:12is the demand quite high in vegas would you say for drugs absolutely yeah
22:18vegas is an interesting place because of our tourism for some years i was a strip club promoter
22:24okay so i was sending groups to to the strip club and you know if you had a group of
22:2910 guys that
22:30wanted to go to the strip club they're going to party you know what i mean so the tourists are
22:35willing
22:35to pay a lot of money for the drugs depending on what part of the world they come from was
22:40there
22:40like a particular kind of group that stood out australian bachelor parties yeah the australians
22:45really that surprises me yeah what about the brits the brits um yeah definitely brit yeah
22:53they um they like cocaine yeah there's there's a lot of drugs here yeah
23:02william's own struggle with drugs began as it has for millions of americans
23:07when he was prescribed opiate painkillers by his doctor
23:13this city has been a roller coaster for me personally i became addicted to heroin and when
23:20you develop a habit that's costing you a thousand dollars a day usually selling drugs is the the best
23:27option unfortunately so i used to sell drugs here in baby did you what sort of drugs were you selling
23:34if
23:35you don't mind me asking heroin meth uh cocaine ecstasy xanax i would sell to friends other people
23:45that were in my circle that were using um and then yeah tourists i've been sober for uh two years
23:54now
23:56how long were you using for would you say for over over 20 years i got to vegas when i
24:02was a sophomore
24:03in high school and i was addicted by the time i was a senior so yeah would you say that
24:09it's quite
24:10easy to get addicted to drugs in vegas have you seen that happen to a lot of people it's easy
24:14to get
24:15addicted to drugs anywhere but with the amount of tourism that we have and the amount of money that
24:19flows through the city there is a higher demand for drugs on the strip so as a teenager or a
24:26young
24:26person drugs are an issue here william says he never sold fentanyl but its arrival in vegas turned his
24:35life upside down there's a fentanyl issue across america but vegas definitely got hit hard it was showing
24:47up in cocaine and you know other drugs people that were not intending to use fentanyl they were od and
24:54dying i transitioned from heroin to fentanyl in 2019 2020. i was functional on heroin for 20 years
25:05but when i started using fentanyl my life completely fell apart within about a year of starting to use
25:12fentanyl i found myself homeless wow um i ended up on las vegas boulevard homeless for almost two years
25:19year and a half two years
25:26there's a lot of low points over a 25 year addiction this was definitely one of my low points
25:36america's opioid crisis kills tens of thousands of people a year
25:41since 2021 it's been the leading cause of death for americans aged between 18 and 45.
25:49in vegas fentanyl's impact has felt across the city even around the glitz and glamour of the strip
25:57we 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
26:19money
26:21this 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
26:46there's a misconception about drug addicts the people that are out here on the streets are not
26:52terrible people addiction is a monster society has kind of brushed them aside
27:09with 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
27:22the champion is willing to do what no one else is willing to do that means keeping my mind body
27:27and spirit clean as well as physical training steve bowe's boxing gym offers support to young
27:33residents of vegas drugs and alcohol good for you guys we've lost two kids in the last few few months
27:41right to fentanyl overdose and they have died anybody recognize this what's this guys it's a vape
27:48what are drug dealers doing with vapes i want to guess make it all color and shine you don't know
27:53what's in here i'll tell you it's fentanyl this killed one of our kids had everything going for him
28:00starts like this and it ends like the poor homeless people that you see outside everywhere
28:05the choices that you're going to make over the next couple years are going to be critical
28:09you need help come talk to me talk to your parents we're here i'm a counselor man you're upset and
28:16depressed you know what you do you come hit the bags as hard as you can are you ready
28:35what do you know about how dangerous fentanyl is fentanyl is probably the most dangerous drug there is
28:41have 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
29:00my uncle passed away from that that's not me you know i i want to stay away from that and
29:05i want to
29:05make something to myself it really helped a lot of kids introduce them to boxing talk about good
29:15grades staying away from drugs and alcohol making good choices so they have a good life
29:20so it's almost like a boxing rehabilitation program yes that's exactly what it is i would
29:27say 90 of my job is counseling and mentoring i'm not trying to find a champion boxer i'm trying to
29:32find
29:33champion people make sure you get those hands up i'm coming beautiful poverty is a risk factor for
29:42overdoses from opioids like fentanyl despite the billions of dollars pouring in on the strip
29:48one in eight vegas residents live below the poverty line 20 percent higher than the national average
29:57as a 15 year old it was easy for me to go get a firearm a pistol as a 15
30:01year old
30:02it was for me to go get a job is that something that you did yes i went down a
30:06wrong path i went
30:07into the streets did drugs alcohol the party life and i just gave up in life completely i sobered up
30:13eight years ago from everything and i chose this gym because coach bow he does stuff for troubled kids
30:18that i didn't have i watched my best friend overdose in front of me when i was 15 he was
30:2314 off of xanax
30:24pills we fell asleep and we woke up and he was blue blue to the face i'm so sorry that
30:29must have been really
30:31hard a lot of the kids you've seen that were here went through similar things as me that's how it
30:36is
30:36here in vegas either we're losing a friend from gang violence to prison to overdosing i think people
30:41have a perception of vegas which is that it's very glamorous there's a lot of glitz there's a lot of
30:46money pumped into it they like to focus everything into the entertainment so they could bring money in
30:51they don't care they leave us to the side it's like the hunger games basically that's how we live here
30:55in vegas it's the casino owners and the celebrities they get to live their lives peacefully while
31:01we're out here trying to survive and a lot of kids are suffering because of it
31:07there you put your hands in let's go one two three
31:13excellent class today guys you gave me chills man appreciate your hard work incredible young people
31:26the casino industry paid billions in taxes supports charities and runs foundations set up to benefit local
31:35communities
31:39but with drug deaths rising it's clear the city still has big challenges to overcome
32:01health issues
32:03round-the-clock parties and global music stars aren't the only big plays las vegas has made to attract new
32:09visitors
32:11looking forward to what's going to be great week of rugby over there
32:16look out vegas sport is at the heart of the city's new image
32:23from 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
32:43fight in a decade and even ice hockey you wouldn't call vegas a traditional hockey market but the
32:49buildings filled with fans every night in less than 10 years vegas has gone from having no
32:55professional sports teams to becoming a host for some of the world's biggest sporting events
33:04which generate almost two billion dollars a year for the city
33:15and where there is sport there will be a market for sports betting too
33:20which 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
33:31or bookies welcome to circa there's a lot to look at right
33:39this is a three-story thousand capacity venue facing a huge 145 foot wide screen
33:47that broadcast multiple live sports from across the world
33:52i have never seen anything like this it's massive mike palm is president of operations here
34:01we'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 gambling
34:20i think it's different for different companies i think table games is sort of phasing out because
34:25it's very labor intensive and as we continue to increase the minimum wage and the cost of health
34:30care 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
34:42these big
34:43beautiful books but still over 80 of the bets come from mobile obviously the infrastructure cost is less
34:49once you get by the tech of having to employ so many people so i think sports is rising as
34:54table
34:54games is declining a recent poll the american gaming association showed close to 60 million
35:00americans said they've placed a wager on a sporting event in the last year that number even five years
35:05ago would have been 30 million so obviously that's a big increasing market we see the influence of folks
35:10that came from playing daily fantasy sports like fantasy football now converting into sports betters
35:16and by mixing sports with the city's pool party culture circa have created what has to be the most
35:24glamorous bookies in the world
35:29stadium swim is a day club that's also a bookies with a 40-foot outdoor screen
35:38it's the dj and people are day drinking and having fun and people are in a pool and they're
35:43watching all the beautiful bodies at the same time the kiosks are down there to make your bets or if
35:48you have a phone account nfl sundays 3 000 people up there 3 000 up there and they pay 10
35:55000 for a cabana
35:56wow they pay 5 000 for a seat in the sports book on an nfl sunday people say that's an
36:00outrageous price
36:02i would say yes but if they pay it is it i mean that's what the demand is
36:08the casino's own betting app lets visitors place bets on their phones from the poolside
36:16gambling on digital devices has become the norm
36:2070 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
36:42there's a flip side to the fun
36:46they say in the 12-step group that i go to there's only three options for a gambler who doesn't
36:50stop
36:50it's prison insanity or death celebrities are promoting their favorite sports book or casino
36:56everywhere you look rob minick is an ex-gambling addict turned campaigner sports betting was his
37:03gateway to a life-changing addiction now he warns others of the dangers and i hope that you don't
37:10go down the same path that i did when i started i was just gambling with my friends on just
37:15fantasy
37:16football and early on it kind of went well like there were some wins along the way but i wanted
37:21things faster than my friends did and i wanted more action and within a month i was already doing
37:26regular sports betting and in america that's three years under age and i was lying about my address my
37:31age trying to just get as many bets as in as i could and i wouldn't stop until the middle
37:35of the
37:35night it was a compulsion after a month as you develop a problem what happens is you start to
37:41isolate and you start to lie about it to friends and family i mean the number of times i would
37:45run
37:45off to the bathroom to check on bets or place bets it was incredible and there's a certain shame
37:50to that but i couldn't stop because to me as i developed the addiction it wasn't just about
37:55feeling adrenaline anymore it was just about feeling okay my brain had literally rewired itself
38:00to the point that i only cared about getting that next bed in
38:06the nevada resorts association say casinos have all signed up to the responsible gaming initiative
38:12and take a proactive approach to identifying and helping problem gamblers
38:23but what about when someone's gambling becomes a problem for the casino
38:29another half a million here we're looking at roughly nine and a half million this is mickey mace a notorious
38:38vegas gambler who claims to have won over 32 million dollars valentine's day 5.7 million and some
38:46change he helps mega stars like drake and lil baby win big 25 hands only lose one thanks for my
38:54man
38:55his exploits attracted over a quarter of a million followers on social media and at first won the goodwill of
39:02the casinos but he claims when he won too much he fell out of favor with the casinos who no
39:09longer welcome
39:10him on the strip
39:29hello how you doing good thanks how are you good i'm tear 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
39:48vegas you
39:49started gambling were you winning big the end of my career i was winning a net profit of a million
39:54dollars a week a million dollars a week right and how do the high rollers in vegas live my lifestyle
40:00as
40:01high roller in vegas was quite lavish they would give me private jets they would give me helicopter
40:06rides anywhere i wanted they gave me a maybach with a chauffeur they gave me a rolls royce with
40:10a chauffeur i lived for free in these private villas who's they the casinos they gave all of that to
40:16you correct 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
40:32to keep everybody making bad moral decisions if you go into any of the casinos today you'll see
40:38that every hallway is just slightly curved and the reason for that is they want to subconsciously direct
40:43you to certain places to spend money or lose money so you think that casinos are designed to
40:48help people to lose 100 but i saw through it and i kept winning there was a tipping point and
40:55each
40:55casino had their own threshold for financial pain and as each one ticked away i'd get banned one at
41:01a time from each casino so you sort of went from being the casino's best client to not being allowed
41:08back in at all i was actually never a good client i was their most hopeful client the amounts that
41:14i was
41:14winning they assumed over long term i'd give all that money back and then some but that never happened
41:20and now abandoned almost every casino in the world is that legal is that a thing yeah it's private
41:26business and they could refuse service for any reason or no reason these casinos were built exclusively
41:31on losers this whole city is built in the middle of the desert as far as you can see there's
41:36nothingness
41:37what is the city doing in the middle of this desert it's exclusively built on losers money
41:49so far in vegas i've seen how the casino industry have successfully transformed the city and why this
41:56new 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 party
42:10scene 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
42:24on here
42:24this is our area bro i told you i discover a side of vegas most tourists won't see we serve
42:32800 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 outside out
42:46of mind
42:47and i find out how the city's rebrand like it's not safe for us right now has impacted its famous
42:54sex industry
42:56what they're doing is really pushing sex workers further underground and that's a perfect storm
43:02there's kind of a saying we have people come to vegas to kill sex workers
43:24so
43:28so
43:30so
Comments