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His stash may end up being worth nothing more than Monopoly money but Las Vegas police have made it abundantly clear that capturing the gun wielding Bellagio chip bandit is a top priority.
The man entered the posh Bellagio Hotel casino early Tuesday morning dressed in a motorcycle jacket and helmet and within a matter of 3 minutes ran off with over $1.5 million in chips.
"This is a high priority case, and we're looking at everything," Lt. Clint Nichols told the Las Vegas Review Journal late Friday night.
That “everything” included fake Craigslist ads for "stolen Bellagio chips".
Casino security didn't try to apprehend the man out of concerns that patrons might be killed or injured if the man decided to use his pistol, police said.
A nearly identical robbery had occurred just one week prior at the Suncoast Casino where $20,000 had been robbed from a poker room’s cashier cage.
Police only announced the Suncoast Casino robbery to the general public on Friday, saying that there were no identifying traits found on security surveillance. Many casino employees, including Bellagio security, were said to be well aware of the Suncoast robbery prior to police releasing information.
"That (the Bellagio) is one large property," Nichols told the LVRJ. "At 4 a.m. on a Tuesday, well that's a pretty tough thing to stop. Just about any business could fall victim to that."
Las Vegas casinos report about nine or 10 robberies in any given year, however, Gambling911.com in recent weeks has covered a series of casino bathroom robberies, one occurring in the Bellagio. In that incident, 2008 World Series of Poker 5th place finisher Scott Montgomery was held up at knife point while using the Bellagio restroom.
Montgomery was in the world famous Vegas hotel for a preliminary event for the Festa al Lago tournament series when he went to the restroom during a scheduled tournament break. Once inside, as per his Twitter post immediately after, Montgomery said,
“Got mugged today at Bellagio. Black guy pulled a knife on me in the restroom. I gave him the $2K in my wallet and he left.”
Montgomery claimed that the Bellagio security had a nonchalant attitude towards the incident. Weeks later a man was murdered in a botched bathroom robbery at the Opera House Casino off the Strip.
- Jagajeet Chiba, Gambling911.com
