Stealth campers at Casinos
For the longest time, you would see individuals or couples living at the casinos, either in the garage or in the parking lot using the minivan as their stealth vehicle of choice. A RV, truck with camper or conversion van would be too obvious that someone is living in the vehicle. Then Toyota releases it’s 3rd gen RAV4 in 2006 and you started see people choosing SUV’s over a hatchback or minivan. I had a friend that used a Ford Explorer before 2006, but Ford makes horrible products.
You would see these people in Reno (especially Peppermill or Nugget) and at any casino that had a garage. You were not allowed to sleep in your vehicles in the garage so slot hustlers came up with stealth vehicles where they sleep in back; the windows are tinted, they have a tonneau cover, some actually slept in the trunk, etc. to avoid detection. In the winter time, the windows fogging up gave you away so they slept during the day rather at night. The garages are being patrolled so being stealth was important.
For example, Cache Creek is famous for stealth campers because they have a 24-hr minimarket where you can use points to buy gas and food. And if you can’t sleep in the garage, Cache Creek lets you sleep in the parking lot for RV’s next to the minimart. It was the same at Jackson but Dalton gas station is 3 miles from the garage. At Red Hawk, you have the Asian slot hustlers who come by bus from San Francisco but sleep in vans in the garage during the weekends. Thunder Valley has a bunch of them (btw, the dumbest slot hustler in CA got caught by TV security ... well, he was sleeping in his black Honda Accord so it wasn’t stealth).
I don’t sleep in the casino complex because I don’t want to be 86’ed. If I am really tired, I’ll drive to a truck stop to crash for a bit. But no rest stops!!
Anyway, wanted to share what creative people can do with their vehicles
1. GMC Terrain where the front passenger seat folds flat for a nice long bed:
https://gmauthority.com/blog/2019/11...ure-spotlight/
2. Sleeping for 2 in the back of a Kia Soul:
http://www.votivephotography.com/blo...mping-sleeping
There are a lot of creative slot hustlers who are also stealth campers.
I can always spot who are hustlers that are stealth campers: for starters they are in the casino all the time and wear similar outfits. I could pretty much figure out which is their vehicle since the place is so dead and there are only a few vehicles in the parking garage or lot. After awhile, you keep noticing the same vehicle and make then the association.
Btw, the current Kia Soul version is 2” inches longer (165 inches long) than the version in the above website. So you would have a bit more room in the latest version.
