Las Vegas casinos boast about having the most sophisticated surveillance and security systems in the world. One needs only to look up from the casino floor to see that the black domed security cameras are everywhere. So with so many eyes in the sky supposedly watching, why did we have the catastrophic security failures at Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino in the days and hours leading up to the October 1st massacre?
Could it be that casinos are more concerned with keeping their money safe than their guests?
We know that Stephen Paddock was able to carry an enormous cache of weapons and ammunition up to a 32nd floor room. How is it that his actions didn’t raise suspicion from Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino staff? Were they properly trained to keep their community, patrons and employees safe? Only in the wake of the Las Vegas shooting have some hotels decided to reexamine their security measures to hopefully prevent another incident like this from happening again.
According to MGM International, Mandalay Bay, Bellagio, Monte Carlo and MGM Grand have reactively increased security levels. However, some hotels on the Las Vegas Strip, such as Wynn and Encore, had already pre-established security protocols that could serve as a deterrent and send up red flags to hotel staff prior to a potential act of terrorism.
In an exclusive interview with “Fox News Sunday,” Wynn Resorts Chief Executive Officer Steve Wynn spoke of a high level counter-terrorism program that he began planning in 2015, a program now fully operational at the Wynn Resorts since last year.
“Basically we had to recruit and expand security by tens of millions of dollars to cover every entrance, to retrain the entire workforce — from housekeeping and room service — and people are in the tower and observing people. We had to cover every exit and every aspect of the building to see if we could identify and preempt any kind of terroristic or violent action. It is never perfect, of course, but what you can do, to use local vernacular: you can change the odds,” Wynn said.
Although the state of Nevada has some of the most relaxed gun laws in the United States, firearms are not welcomed at the Wynn resorts. Specially trained guards as well as metal detectors invisible to Wynn patrons and installed at property entrances are designed to assist in preventing a large-scale attack.
“We don’t allow guns in this building unless they’re being carried by our employees and there’s a lot of them,” Wynn says. “But if anybody’s got a gun and we find them continually, we eject them from the hotel.”
Also in place at Wynn Resorts is a “do not disturb” policy that alerts hotel staff to investigate if a guest’s room goes more than 12 hours with this notice.
“The scenario that we’re aware of would have indicated that [Paddock] didn’t let anyone in the room for two or three days,” said Wynn. “That would have triggered a whole bunch of alarms here.”
The question remains, if Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino had similar security measures why were they ignored and if they didn’t have similar security measures, why not?