Thin-skinned VitalVegas (Scott Roeben) blocked me for questioning bullshitty-looking casino visitation "record" he promoted

[Dan Druff]

VitalVegas, aka Scott Roeben, is a thin-skinned, temperamental little dude who sometimes gets good scoops on Vegas-related gossip. I appreciate some of his work, but the guy has some serious personality flaws.

He has probably blocked more people on X than anyone in Vegas. I'm not exaggerating when I say that.

If you say the slightest thing to question or irritate him, he blocks you (sometimes after first making a snide comment).

He blocked me some years ago for something incredibly minor, but eventually unblocked me when I took his side involving a frivolous lawsuit filed against him by Sahara. (This also shows how dedicated I am to the truth -- that I took his side despite the fact that he had me blocked!)

That same year, I appeared with him on his girlfriend's podcast. We had been on cordial terms ever since.

Anyway, I was just blocked again, and for the dumbest reason ever.




Recently there have been a number of attempts to set the record for "Most Casinos Visited in a 24 Hour Period". The recent official record of 74 was set in 2017 by two dudes. I don't remember their names. In 2023, John and Kristina Mehaffey, a husband-and-wife Vegas journalism team, set a new record of 93 in 2023.

However, the Mehaffeys were not granted the Guinness record, because Guinness requires you to play live table games and get it signed off, and the Mehaffeys visited some casinos where the live games were not operating. By the way, I've met them both, and they're very nice and honest people.

Anyway, some dude then broke their record after that, which again, didn't make it into Guinness for the same reason.

This past week, two guys who had previously appeared on TV show "The Amazing Race" claim to have set the record for 115 casinos visited in 24 hours, and it was supposedly certified by Guinness. Note that this was heavily promoted by website casino.org, who claimed to have been along with these guys on their journey. VitalVegas is a freelancer who produces a lot of material for casino.org, and was part of the promotional effort.

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I'll continue next post, and explain my problem with all of this.

[Dan Druff]

John Mehaffey, who if you remember from above, did NOT hold the current Guinness record, called this out as bullshit:

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In case you don't feel like clicking through to see Scott and John's long exchange, here it is:

I understand your enthusiasm on this subject, but I would caution you to be careful about who and what you’re dubbing “nonsense.” Guinness (the company whose record this is) expanded the criteria. You have strong opinions, but they’re based upon a false premise. You’re gearing up for a battle, but it’s the wrong battlefield.

I downloaded the rules for this record from Guinness World Records yesterday and today. They still say chips must be purchased from a dealer who signs off the transaction in a logbook. These are the rules for applying for the record your group claims was just broken.

We have the most detailed data about the number of Las Vegas valley casinos with ETGs, which we have at 71. Maybe we missed it by one or two because they are in obscure locations, not 44.

Even if your group got GWR to bend the rules to include ETGs, your group's content and GWR agree slots are disallowed. At a minimum, they played video blackjack or roulette on slots unless it is proved we missed 40+ casinos with ETGs.

This group had zero transparency. There are no social media posts proving any of this. Nobody on the outside knows where they even played. Our data shows they couldn't play 115 ETGs as they claim under any industry-accepted definition of it. Nobody has proven otherwise, even though we've been discussing it for days.

Over eight hours after they stopped, your group's tracker says they played at 80, not 115. Any reasonable person would question that.

We congratulated the other group when they beat us and partied with them. Their evidence was available to the world instantly. This is nothing like that. No proof has been shared, and it seems like reported rules were not followed, even if ETGs were suddenly allowed.

It sounds like all parties involved don't know what an ETG is. Any machine you would find in a tavern or store is not an ETG under our industry's definition. It is always a slot, which your group said going in wouldn't count.

They met Guinness World Record’s guidelines. They are under no obligation to meet yours.

Obviously VitalVegas was taking it very personally.

When I made a joke about Santa Claus, he came back with a surly response and insta-blocked me:

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What a dick.

But who was right here? I'll discuss that in the next post.

[Tasha]

A lot of people block people who call them out on their bullshit. A Poster said he asked George Lopez something like,"How's that kidney your good hearted ex Wife donated to you before you cruelly divorced her?" George blocked him. LMAO!

[Dan Druff]

The "ETGs" in John's posts stand for Electronic Table Games.

John was making the point that machines do not count for this record, and that only live tables count, with a dealer signing off that the play occurred. The "ETG" part means that electronic blackjack (or other electronic versions of table games) do not count for this record, as they are too similar to slots.

Also, he pointed out that casino.org's own tracker showed the guys at 80 casinos, but eight hours after they stopped their attempt, suddenly it was reported as 115.

Finally, John mentioned that from own recent effort to count the number of Vegas casinos with electronic table games, he counted just 71 locations with either live or electronic table games. Therefore, it seemed impossible for these two guys to have found 44 (presumably nonexistent) additional casinos in the time allotted, also with electronic table games. So even if such games were allowed for the record, the 115 number still didn't make sense!

Scott had no rebuttal to this, aside from telling him that Guinness verified it, and that's all that matters.

Note that, unlike John's unofficial record, where he listed all casinos visited, these two guys did not, nor did casino.org. These two did not provide photographic or video evidence of their journey, nor any specific details.

The proof was basically "Trust us, bro."


John's guess was that they set this record by playing machines like Game King and selecting blackjack, and then counting it as a visit. I have a feeling he's right.

[Dan Druff]

Here is the casino.org article about it: https://www.casino.org/news/the-guin...ted-set-today/

This article states, "They began their historic journey on Thursday, September 25, at 3 pm local time in Southern Nevada. The Guinness World Records requires that they place a table game or electronic table game bet to count as a casino visit. Playing a slot machine, placing a sports bet, or gambling in any other capacity does not.... The Guinness rules prohibit the use of taxis, rideshares, self-driving vehicles, and hired cars. Scheduled public transportation like buses, trains, and monorails is allowed, though the duo is sticking to their e-bikes."

Note that the article claims that Guinness allows electronic table games, which was not allowed previously, according to John.

They also could not take rideshares or taxis, but were allowed to use public transportation or e-bikes. Presumably they didn't drive a car, as the whole parking issue can slow them down.


This page showed their progress: https://www.casino.org/us/casino-world-record/

Notably, the map showed they did not leave the greater Vegas area, which makes sense because they were on e-bikes. So how did they find 115 casinos with either live games or electronic table games?

You'll see on the webpage that a number of organizations were sponsoring this, including casino.org and Circa.



Here is casino.org's promotional video about the attempt. Notice they built some kind of contest around it, and these two dudes were representing casino.org in their venture here. The only "reporter" following them was from casino.org. Talk about a conflict of interest!

[mickeycrimm]

This vital vegas guy was calling Charlie Kirk a racist and fascist just after the shooting.

[Tasha]

This vital vegas guy was calling Charlie Kirk a racist and fascist just after the shooting.

Guy is a Dick.

[Dan Druff]

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LOL!!!

[jdaewoo]

This vital vegas guy was calling Charlie Kirk a racist and fascist just after the shooting.

Stop retarding up an interesting thread with something completely irrelevant.

[DGenBen]

Vital Vegas also posted on Twitter awhile back about a new bank of Double Double Bonus VP machines & said that since they were new they were going to be very volatile at first so you had the chance to hit lots of big hands before they balanced out to their long term average paybacks.

When people, even politely, tried to point out how this was incorrect he was rude & dismissive.

Plus his face looks sort of like a ball sack.

[theywontpayontuesday]

This vital vegas guy was calling Charlie Kirk a racist and fascist just after the shooting.

Stop retarding up an interesting thread with something completely irrelevant.

Now if you were Mdawg it would be hilarious.

[accountinquestion]

He ignored me too on Twitter lol. There is at least one obsessed weirdo who harasses him kinda like a mdawg to kewl. I haven't seen their posts in years. Perhaps I unfollowed but when Scott blocked me someone reached out to me like I was part of some club. The guy just sounds like a little weasel and a prime example of why you don't want to live in LV. Too
Many Lil weasels and effeminate card counters.

[Rob.Singer]

Not sure why anybody cares about two clowns involved in casino-hopping antics or what some low-level blogger has to say about it. But of course the stated rules were not followed, and given the irrelevance of whatever they were trying to accomplish--accompanied with the lies and deceit along the way--is it any wonder that you have to question whether kew was really not one of them?

[theywontpayontuesday]

What are the damages? What happens next?

[mickeycrimm]

This vital vegas guy was calling Charlie Kirk a racist and fascist just after the shooting.

Stop retarding up an interesting thread with something completely irrelevant.

This vital vegas guy was calling Charlie Kirk a racist and fascist just after the shooting, jdaepoo.

[redietz]

This vital vegas guy was calling Charlie Kirk a racist and fascist just after the shooting.

Stop retarding up an interesting thread with something completely irrelevant.

This vital vegas guy was calling Charlie Kirk a racist and fascist just after the shooting, jdaepoo.

You know, this should probably have its own thread. I have a long-time friend who used one really tone-deaf Kirk line in a reply on a forum as a response to someone else. Well, ETSU is in the midst of firing him, and he has tenure, for that one line. And he preceded that one bad line with the statement that he never advocates violence. But that didn't matter because the line is being used in isolation as a reason to fire him.

I guess my point is, being momentarily stupid should not necessarily be a fire-able offense. If you can link exactly what the vital vegas guy said, that would be helpful in figuring out if he was a shrill nutcase or just in-the-moment exercising really bad judgement.

Calling someone a racist and fascist can be done in a Dragnet way. It may be mean-spirited and stupid, but if it's meant purely politically, then it's just a poorly-timed opinion.

Prior to the assassination I had watched Kirk for just a couple hours on tape doing his Q&A stuff and knew nothing else about him. I have been to two live Turning Point events in the last decade, one a year or so ago. Kirk was not at those events. I have no knowledge of Kirk beyond watching those two hours of taped Q&A, which I think he conducted reasonably and well.

[smurgerburger]

I find all this "momentary stupidity" talk unconvincing, particularly after seeing wall-to-wall "momentary stupidity" online over the CEO shooting less than a year ago.

These people are expressing political opinions that seem true to them and even ordinary (within their online circles anyway).

Now for some of them it may be foolish to not foresee that there could be professional consequences, but that only applies to their decision to express themselves. The sentiments that they express are not the ravings of the temporarily deranged.

[redietz]

I find all this "momentary stupidity" talk unconvincing, particularly after seeing wall-to-wall "momentary stupidity" online over the CEO shooting less than a year ago.

These people are expressing political opinions that seem true to them and even ordinary (within their online circles anyway).

Now for some of them it may be foolish to not foresee that there could be professional consequences, but that only applies to their decision to express themselves. The sentiments that they express are not the ravings of the temporarily deranged.

No, the sentiments are not "mistakes." They are their sentiments. The error, to me, is not reading the room. Or having a little common human sensitivity when online.

Another mistake is the assumption that a particular site or forum has a defined audience, as if you were in a room or at a club. All audiences are undefined and potentially unlimited.

Or, to be honest, the mistake is that they are expressing themselves in the moment as opposed to editing themselves after pausing. As a writing major (and journalism for two years), I see this as the most common problem with online communication. People don't pause to review what they just wrote. They just write and hit send. I kind of understand why because writing takes so much longer than speaking, and reading is faster than listening, so it is a self-damaging set-up. The loop is set up to make you an idiot. And because most people spend most of their time posting anonymously, when they actually post under their real-world identities, they lack that pause-and-review.

You are writing "anonymously." I use the parentheses because at some point coming soon, AI will be able to identify you pretty quickly and be able to attach your entire posting history to your real-world name. This may be only a few years away. I'm sure the CIA will be able to do this for 90% of the population shortly if they feel like looking. Scrubbing will be, at best, a partial and hit-or-miss strategy.

So everything you posted, even under an alleged pseudonymous handle, will come back to haunt you, if not next month, then certainly next decade.

[Dan Druff]

What are the damages? What happens next?

No damages, aside from the reputations of Vital Vegas (already flawed), Casino.org, and the Guinness Book of World Records.

I wouldn't call this a scandal, as it's mostly victimless, but it just feels gross. If you're going to build a gimmick around breaking a niche gambling record, at least do it honestly. The fact that Guinness markedly changed their definition of a "casino visit", once a new record was attempt was backed by deep pocketed sponsors, really gives the community (and Vegas) a bad look.

These types of records can be fun for the casual fan of Vegas, but this backfired badly, and just gives off the vibe of shady casinos and shady gambling media rigging a challenge.

From what I'm hearing, VitalVegas is very butthurt over this, as he was naive enough to believe that his followers were too dumb to question this, and Mehaffey's (spot on) analysis ruined the entire ruse.

[Dan Druff]

I am tempted to contact Circa about this, and let them know about how badly this flopped, but there's no point.

They're probably regretting attaching their name to this mess, but they'll never publicly admit it.

Also, they've long been in bed with VitalVegas (who likes to act as if he just independently loves the place and hates its competition), so they're not gonna divorce him over this.

Hopefully they've learned their lesson about partnering in matters where they have little control.

Note that they got involved with previous attempts to break this record, including the Mehaffeys, who received a cardboard placard from Circa for their efforts, despite Guinness not accepting the record.