I spent last weekend at Resorts World in Las Vegas, the 3500-room property that encompasses three Hilton brands. I have a trip report on the property written, scheduled to post this weekend. While I was there a scandal was unfolding and I didn’t realize it.
The hotel has the ability to project messages out from the side of the building on the Hilton side.
This past Saturday a “’trust fund baby’ from Australia” had been partying at Encore’s Beach Club. He demanded at the Wynn nightclub open an hour early for him, but the manager of XS personally declined this request. It’s not something they can do without any advance notice. This is someone who cares deeply about the party.
My man loves to party and champagne 🍾 pic.twitter.com/4Ehwj5Mil2
— Brex (@rubberginza) August 7, 2023
The guest was angry enough that he “proceeded to threaten [manager Niko] Samarxhiu and his family.” He was then “barred from Wynn Las Vegas, and law enforcement was contacted.”
Ralph proceeded to post a profanity-laced series of angry and xenophobic messages on his Instagram account, specifically calling out the manager of XS, including one referring to Samarxhiu as a “broke ass immigrant.”
Screen Grab Credit: Casino.org
He proceeded across the street to Resorts World, spending “more than $200,000 at the nightclub [Zouk]” which allowed him to submit messages for the side of the building. He used that to troll the manager of the Wynn’s club who had refused to open early for him. He had them display “Ben’s House” to signal that he’d moved to the competing venue, and then “Food stamps for Niko” the manager of the Wynn club.
More WTF. Resorts World showed this on their screen, calling out the Wynn executive the guest had a conflict with, by name. This guest “perk” was allegedly provided for a $50k order at Zouk. Told Wynn has involved Metro. https://t.co/ZVJMaYElbd pic.twitter.com/tgMvD1NqtB
— Vital Vegas (@VitalVegas) August 6, 2023
Resorts World clearly lacked any ‘brand protection’ in its processes for approving messaging for the side of its property. The nightclub could post anything without review, it seems, and their standard is we have someone spending two hundred grand that wants to post something, yes of course.
According to Resorts World,
The LED sign on the West Tower was activated on Saturday night with a graphic requested by a nightlife patron. The team members who approved it were not aware of the background behind the request. Regardless, this was a mistake, and the messaging displayed does not reflect Resorts World Las Vegas’s values, and we regret that our LED screen was misused in this manner. Our leadership is handling this internally to ensure the assets displayed on the LED screens are in full alignment with the brand and our values.
The property is apologizing, but notably not offering to donate the money received for posting messages on the side of its building.
My overall experience with the property was that it’s a fantastic hard product but that some attention to detail could be improved, and how messaging gets posted on the side of its hotel is apparently one of those details.
(HT: TravelZork)
The hissy fit thrown because he couldn’t get in an hour early is unreal. You can’t buy class, that’s for sure…
Sad thing though, I’d bet that Wynn will probably (sooner than later) lift the ban. I hope I’m wrong. A high roller could walk away up $250k-$500k for the weekend. Club people are zero risk. They’re not going to find $100k in that $5k bottle of Grey Goose.
Of course they’re not going to donate the cheddar. Resorts will be lucky not to be in Chapter 11 by the end of the year
Why would anyone drop that much money when you could buy a new Mercedes-Benz truck with that kind of money or put down on a house, just to allegedly post offensive messages directly or indirectly?
Too much money, too few brains.
who cares? news like thus not worth the carbon footprint it generated around the websphere
Please do us all a favor and Send this clown back to Australia. !
Wow, that guy spent a lot of money just to prove you can’t fix Stupid. And he won the Stupid Prize of the month.
Not too bright spending money like that. Shows him to be an idiotic moron.
1000% that RW should be posting whatever messages the whales want. This is Vegas baby and where that type of behavior quite frankly is (and should be) encourage.
Well, duh! To open early you have to bring people in early–and that’s generally not something that can be done at the drop of a hat. He’s got a very upside-down view of the world!
I mean, that is pretty funny. You gotta give the douchebag credit for his persistence
where’s Platy?
Based.
5 doses plus absolute 2+ years lock-down from unlimited power government fries the brain (buT ‘FreE’ healthcare).
Bravo for Djokovic for giving them the middle finger.