FBI Declassified Documents Reveal Mandalay Bay Gunman May Have Snapped over Highroller Treatment

Recently-released FBI documents reveal that bad treatment of casino highrollers may have been a factor behind the 2017 mass shooting at Mandalay Bay which left 60 dead and hundreds more injured.

No real motive has ever been offered by authorities for why Stephen Paddock, a self-professed professional gambler, opened fire on the Route 91 Harvest Festival from his 32nd floor hotel room.

Last week, however, declassified interviews the FBI conducted with those who knew or met Paddock reveal that he was angry about the treatment of VIP gamblers.

The documents, at times heavily redacted to protect witness details, range from interviews with those who interacted with Paddock in Las Vegas around the time of the shooting, to gun store owners, car hire firms, and hotel staff from previous casino visits Paddock made.

One interviewee, who worked at the Tropicana Las Vegas, revealed how Paddock would be offered $1500 free play, $750 in food/beverage vouchers, and 5 nights’ free lodging for gambling at least $300 per day. Paddock in fact lost $38,000 during the visit.

Another interviewee stated that Paddock was “a highroller” with “a bankroll of approximately $2-3million”.

They also revealed that Paddock, who generally played video poker at $200 per bet, was apparently banned from the Atlantis, Peppermill, Tamaris Junction casinos in Reno.

The statement reads:

“In previous years, casinos treated the high rollers very well and would frequently treat them to free cruises, penthouse suites, tours in wine country and rides in nice cars. About three years ago, the casinos changes [sic] their views of how the highrollers would be treated and started banning them from certain events, hotels, and sometimes certain casinos.”

The witness claims that he personally gambled more than $6million per year and that Paddock “was a bigger player”, adding that he felt the poor treatment of Paddock as a highroller may have led him to “snap”.

The unnamed fellow gambler believed that:

“The Mandalay Bay was not treating Paddock well because a player of his status should have been in a higher floor in a penthouse suite.”

As it was, Paddock used his vantage point on the 32nd floor of the hotel to open fire on the concert-goers below, using multiple high-powered weapons to kill 59 victims and injure more than 500 more in an 11-minute shooting spree.
Paddock took his own life when police closed in on him in his room. It was later revealed that his father, Benjamin Hoskins Paddock, had been on the FBI’s ‘Most Wanted’ list in the 1960s, described as a ‘psychopathic armed bank robber with suicidal tendencies.