Taking pictures in casinos

I've been taking a lot of photos inside of casinos lately, and it has been an interesting experience. First, I've been impressed by how much nice stuff there is, at least in the classier joints. I tend to be pretty oblivious to decor and accoutrements that don't directly affect me. When I'm at a casino to play poker, I just beeline to the poker room and then back to my car, paying precious little attention to anything in between those two points or outside of my path. But recently, when scoping out interesting things to photograph for the "Guess the casino" posts, I've wandered around much more and actually paid attention to the art, the lighting, the decorations, etc. Turns out there's a lot more lovely touches than I ever knew, especially in the Bellagio, Venetian, Wynn, etc. Who knew?!

Just as interesting, though, has been the variety of reactions from casino employees. For the most part, I just get ignored, along with everybody else who is taking pictures. But once in a while somebody asks me to stop. So far, nobody has asked me to leave the premises or delete the photos I've already taken. (I would do the former. I would not do the latter.)

The most common place I have been asked to stop taking pictures is inside of poker rooms. This was prior to even thinking of the "Guess the casino" posts, mostly for comment on newly opened or remodeled rooms. Offhand, I can remember this having happened at Gold Coast, Sunset Station, Aliante Station, and Silverton. When a reason has been stated, it has always been the privacy of the players there.

But twice recently I have been asked to discontinue taking pictures in other parts of casinos. The first was a couple of weeks ago at Red Rock Station, then again this week at Green Valley Ranch. I am confident that it is no coincidence that these are owned by the same company--as are two of the four poker rooms in which I've been asked to stop.

At Red Rock, it wasn't even a security guy. It was apparently a maintenance man, judging by the tools on his belt. He didn't just ask me to stop; he had to throw in a little lecture about how if I went to the Strip, they wouldn't let me take pictures anywhere inside. (In retrospect, I believe that their rule is no photos on the casino floor, though elsewhere in the facility is OK, but he wasn't really making that clear.) Well, that's just completely false. I have taken many pictures now inside of virtually every major casino on the Strip, and haven't been hassled in any way about it.

I was with a friend that day, and the same guy asked her to stop with the pictures just before he talked to me. (We were far enough apart that he probably didn't know we were there together.) What he told her was even more bizarre. She was taking a picture of some piece of interesting interior design, and he said something like, "If the owners discovered that their designs had been copied by another casino on the other side of the world, they'd come back here and kill whoever took those photos!" Lovely way for employees of a service industry to speak to their guests and customers.

Wednesday night at GVR, I wandered around snapping shots for 20 minutes or so. Then out of the corner of my eye I noticed a security guy in black walking towards me, but he stopped a short distance away. When I looked around, it seemed to me that he was trying hard to appear as if he were not paying attention to me. After the Red Rock experience, I thought that he must have been sent to stop me, but for some reason felt that he had to catch me in the act. I wandered maybe 50 or 70 feet. I didn't notice him following me, but I didn't look around to check. Clicked off one more picture, then, sure enough, he approached me. "There is no photography allowed on the casino floor." OK. I put my cell phone away. Of course, I already had 20 or so pictures, which is plenty for my purposes.

VegasRex is one of my favorite bloggers about what's going on in this city. He has a ton more experience that I do with the schizophrenic way that casinos deal with people casually taking pictures. Green Valley Ranch got him, too, though with an added touch that wasn't imparted to me (at least not in my presence):

I took pictures all over the casino, but when I snapped the shot above, a
(in)security lady came up to me, and told me that I could not take pictures. I
said “okay, and put my camera away”. [Sic on that misplaced quotation mark. PG.]

Then, she picked up her walkie talkie and said, “One camera warn at station
number 2571″. I don’t remember the number, but it either denoted her employee
number or the location of the “incident”.

Basically, every time a security person annoys someone, they proudly radio
it in so that they will get credit for pissing off a customer. I guess they get
a gold star or something after they annoy the hell out of a certain number of
people.

I get this harassment all the time, but this was the first time I heard the
formality of radioing the “kill” back to headquarters.

As you can see, this is part of why I conclude that the Stations facilities are a lot more paranoid about this than other casinos.

Another time at GVR security followed poor Rex while he was taking pictures from the parking garage, but didn't actually stop him--which is why, combined with the comment from the guy who talked to me, I conclude that their policy pertains only to gambling areas, though they're at least suspicious of it elsewhere.

He also got asked to stop taking pictures at the Luxor:

As I was leaving, I stopped to take one final picture, as a security lady
came over and scolded me. I had taken about 300 pictures in roughly an hour, and
on my way out she finally told me that I could not take pictures inside the
casino. O …. K. So I didn’t get the 301st picture. Once again, that policy is a
complete and utter waste of time, and it’s patently unenforceable. Like Don
Quixote tilting at windmills. But at least it gives “security” something to do
while my bike is being stolen for the second time. I wouldn’t want them to get
caught up in preventing actual malfeasance. I doubt they get paid enough.

It happened again at the Hilton, after its poker room closed:

Don’t you just love what they’ve done with the place?

I went to cash out my Patriots/Eagles ticket today, and got this grainy
cellphone shot.

It is now “Wheel of Fortune World”. I kid you not.

I tried to take another one where the “Wheel of Fortune” is lit up (it
lights on and off from left to right), but the security lady came over and
started screaming at me for aiming my camera at the thing.

Something about Bin Laden using Wheel of Fortune slot machines to take over
the world.I always thought those things were evil.

Seriously, I don’t know what the lady was babbling about other than “you can’t take pictures here!”

At the opening of the Palazzo, the schizophrenia really showed itself:

As for photos …

The first Palazzo security person directed me to the best spots to take pictures, I was then encouraged to take pictures by the casino floor manager, another security person took a picture of me with the gaming machines in the background (”Would you like me to get you in the picture, sir?”), and the 4th security person ran up and told me that there were absolutely no pictures to be taken in the casino at all, and she shadowed me for awhile to make sure that I didn’t. By that time I had already taken several hundred pictures in the casino, so it really didn’t matter.

It just goes to show you that the whole “photography” thing is completely random and up to the discretion of the individual security person you may be speaking with. It makes little to no sense not have a crystal clear posted policy, and you can’t fault the tourists for not knowing what in the hell is going on.

3/4ths of the staff encouraged me to photograph, and one staff member was a real bitch.

And speaking of the whole terrorism angle, as the Hilton woman apparently did, one of his funniest stories is being told he couldn't take pictures of City Center, under construction, because other people seeing him do so apparently worried that he was a terrorist plotting how to blow the thing up. It's too good a story to reduce to an excerpt here, so just go read the whole post.

His strangest story of all, though, is the cocktail waitress at the Venetian who actually threw a glass at him because he had taken her picture, followed by Venetian security guys acting like complete morons about the whole situation. Again, too good a story to condense--go read here.

Over the following few days, however, Rex took pictures not just inside of the Flamingo and MGM, but had cocktail waitresses and showgirls cheerfully pose for him. The inconsistency from place to place and from day to day and from one employee to another even on the same day perfectly illustrates how completely insane the whole thing is.

Here's the core of Rex's comment on the stupidity being displayed:

There were no signs preventing photography, and as has been discussed before, taking pictures in such areas is not illegal. Some security people say “go ahead” and some ask you to stop. It is really just the luck of the draw. Taking pictures inside of any Vegas casino is not illegal.

99% of people really aren’t sure what the law regarding photography is in private buildings (although they act like they know), so here is a very brief primer. It is not comprehensive, but is just a general guideline.

http://www.krages.com/ThePhotographersRight.pdf

It is not illegal to take pictures in the casino. It is illegal to keep taking pictures if they ask you to stop. If they ask me to stop, I do stop. But there is no posted policy in the casino, and if you ask around to the employees, you will get different answers from different people. Some employees have encouraged me to take pictures. One time a pit boss instructed a dealer to pose for me. It just varies day to day as to what the “policy” is. Sometimes you are invited to take them, sometimes they just ignore you, and sometimes they ask you to stop. I just do what they ask me to do, if they ask me to do anything at all. It’s a humongous “grey” area in which you might violate the wishes of certain people … but you violate no laws.

...

I have had my photo taken thousands of times in this town without my permission. It is part of being out and about in Vegas. And it almost always occurs on private property. I’ve had my picture taken at the Bellagio Conservatory probably 50 times while I was milling about. Nobody ever asked me if it was okay. Being in a publicly accessible place implies consent, and I don’t expect them to ask me.

I have a lot of pictures of the Rio performers. I never stopped the show to
ask if I could take their pictures, I just took them … along with hundreds of
other people. And most cocktail waitresses will gladly give you a smile. They
are part of the entertainment, and they (should) know it.

I have pictures of the Sirens of TI, Venetian gondoliers, Bally’s
Showgirls, ride operators at Circus Circus, doormen, cab jockeys, monorail
ambassadors, etc, etc, etc.

Hell, the girls at hooters smile and pose when they see a camera come
out:
http://www.vegasrex.com/2007/12/10/hooters-girls-and-cowboys//

Why?

Because it’s Las Fucking Vegas. You are going to get on film, and it doesn’t make one shit’s bit of difference if you want to be or not. Big cameras, small cameras, pen cameras, cellphone cameras, everybody has some kind of camera with them 24/7 … welcome to 2008.

If you have an aversion to being on film … don’t come here. You may
know it, you may not know it, but someone is going home with a picture of you. I
hate to break it to Ms. Bad Aim, but she has been photographed eight bazillion
times, probably without her knowledge.

I could not possibly say it better.

Other than the sensibilities of certain delicate guests, are there other legitimate reasons a casino might want to prohibit photography on its property? Here are the ones I can think of:

1) I once heard a poker dealer tell somebody who asked about taking pictures that flash photography, at least, was forbidden because it could temporarily blind the video surveillance cameras. OK. If that's true, it at least makes sense, though I really think that it's an awfully minor consideration. But so far neither my experience or that of anybody else I've heard from or read about finds the casinos making a distinction between picture-taking with versus without flash.

2) There's the intellectual property theft angle, alluded to by the maintenance guy at Red Rock. That's completely bogus, because if somebody wanted to copy a design, he or she could. They are not copyrighted or trademarked (for the most part, and no other casino would want to copy the portions that are). Somebody could come in and sketch whatever he or she was interested in, or just memorize what it looked like and sketch it later. You can't prevent copying, as fashion designers see every year when knockoffs come out the day after a dress is worn at a runway show or Hollywood premiere. Furthermore, with the availability of tiny, completely concealable cameras, anybody who seriously wanted to photograph a piece of the interior of a casino would be able to do so with impunity, unharassed by security. It's only those of us who are casual and willing to be obvious about it that get hassled.

3) Could somebody be scoping out the place in order to plan a robbery, a la "Ocean's Eleven"? I suppose so, but the same considerations come into play as above. You can't stop a determined group of people from making their dastardly plans; you simply prompt them use other means, such as making sketches or using surreptitious photography.

If there are other possible justifications for prohibiting photography inside of a casino, I can't think of them.

Balanced against those pretty weak excuses is the ill will caused by stopping people from doing what they want to do, when it hurts nobody. People like to take pictures--especially people on vacation, having fun, visiting an unfamiliar new place. Hell, when they get home and share pictures of their trip with family and friends, and post them online, it's free advertising for the casinos. What's more, there are many attractions both inside and outside of casinos that seem like obvious invitations for visitors to take pictures: the Rio Masquerade show, the "dealertainers" at Imperial Palace, the "flair" bartenders you find all over the place, showgirls handing out flyers advertising the available entertainment, attractive young female dealers provocatively dressed (the Pussycat Pit at Caesars, the Pleasure Pit at Planet Hollywood, the Burlesque X girls at Flamingo, the Playboy bunny dealers at Palms), and so forth. Insinuating that people are doing something evil by taking photos alienates and annoys them for no good reason.

I wish the casinos would give up on this particular manifestation of insanity, and leave the craziness to the tourists, who pay for the privilege.