As they keep telling you whatever happens in the casino supposedly remains within it, though at times it stays for longer: For years now, the old gambling dens have hosted fortunes and memories and eerie rumors of the paranormal. From uncanny coincidences to foreboding prophecies, the ‘myths’ around these places have taken a life of their own. Be it founded in truth or spun wildly out of all proportion by imagination, the myths tell an interesting tale of places where excitement and suspense intertwine with hidden secrets.
Rumors near Las Vegas
Vegas knows entertainment, but the myths that infest the Strip go much further than flashing neon lights and ringing slots. At the heart of this, the Bally’s, first under its past life as the MGM Grand, has been the center of paranormal talk more than a couple of times. The ‘rebuilt’ hotel, rebuilt in the massive scale during the early 1980s, later recorded lifts working non-logically, hallways inexplicably chilly, and ghost figures disappearing round corners. Although unconfirmed, they became the source of the casino legend, it being transmitted by the workers as well as the customers.
And the Flamingo, most famously the haunt of a larger-than-life figure: Bugsy Siegel. While his name is hardly ever mentioned so often anymore among gaming communities, he is said to haunt the Presidential Suite, where music occasionally drifts through. Is it the music of an uneasy legacy, or an old building creaking out its years?
Only a few blocks down the Strip, the Luxor’s pyramid design has fueled rumors for decades. Despite one of the Strip’s most stunning designs, others attribute its appearance to an unsettling imbalance. Paranormal buffs call speculation of a “curse,” with some claiming certain designs, no matter how grand, maybe bear an unintended burden.
Myths we cannot do without
Besides ghost legends, the world of gambling holds other myths, the type of legends so often told they’re the language of casino legend. Perhaps the legend longest-standing has to do with ventilation to pump oxygen and keep players alert. Even that sounds like a movie script, but there aren’t signs this ever did happen or even became legally viable.
There is the tradition of finding out lumps on the hotel bed by unexpected visitors, often described in far worse terms than mere lumps. Though rare, it addresses the deep-rooted fear of the unknown places and the suppressed past they carry.
And perhaps the most persistent legend is the notion that jackpots don’t entirely happen by chance, that there is some sort of “man in the sky” passing out winners from a secret command bunker. The truth is this: the newest slot games operate on strict randomization programs. But the legend that there is some sort of secret force manipulating destiny is so closely intertwined with the sense of mystery that no surprise people continue to believe it.
Ghosts Off the Strip
While Las Vegas is perhaps the Strip’s squeaky wheel, there are other locations on which ghost legend thrives. The Monte Carlo Casino of Monaco, with halls of luxurious tradition, is no exception. It too boasts a dark heritage, a vengeful ghost woman in black, said to appear during times of adversity. Witnesses, when they do glimpse her, remember her as elegantly reserved, the antithesis of the tumult surrounding them.
Abandoned casinos on other parts of the globe create the perfect settings for ghost legends. For example, there is the paranormal haunting of abandoned Asbury Park Casino in New Jersey where whispers of jazz music along with laughter can be heard coming from empty hallways. Another case is a coastal casino in Cyprus, which became renowned for the legend of a paranormal gambler being stuck on a vacant game of blackjack forever.
Other times, however, it’s not the table, but the objects on it that hold the secrets. From old card tables reputed to be cursed, to vintage slots reputed to “pick” losing players, these legends seem to refer to our desire to account for luck, particularly when it goes against us.
Conclusion
There is a zone of liminality, between the chaos and the order, the grime and the glamour, the fantasy world and the reality world, where the casinos operate. It is not surprising, therefore, that they host legends with blurred limits between reality and fiction. Whether it is the feeling of being observed, the chill on a crowded floor, or a machine supposedly acting strangely, these intuitions linger even after we have left the floor behind. Urban myths, however, require no verification to persist. They live on possibility, on the hint of maybe, just maybe, there’s something to it behind the veil. And maybe the most intriguing thing of all: not whether the spirits exist or not, but the way in which so many believe they do.