It's hard to figure out the motive here, but at this point, depression/frustration due to gambling losses seems to be the most likely explanation. It's also possible that his compulsive gambling was just a symptom of a greater psychosis which brought him to do this.

As a veteran of Las Vegas casinos, I can shed some light on some matters regarding his gambling, as well as his ability to get/hide the numerous large firearms in the room.



What kind of gambler was he? Was he perhaps an advantage player or winning gambler?

Very unlikely. His brother indicated that he sometimes gambled on cruise ships, which is almost always hugely -EV, as their odds tend to be worse than land-based casinos. It seems that his game of choice was video poker, but no casino advantage players I know have ever heard of him, and that's a fairly small and tight-knit community. There are also reports that he gambled tens of thousands of dollars in the past few weeks. That could mean one of two things -- either he LOST or WON tens of thousands, which is significant -- or he simply wagered tens of thousands, which is very insignificant. As a point of reference, when I play a single day of video poker, I usually wager $50,000, but it is almost impossible to lose more than $5,000 while doing so.



Is is possible that he was a rich accountant who didn't care about the money won or lost?

Very unlikely. He attempted to "flip" a house recently, which he bought for $245,000. He ended up selling it at a small loss (I think $13,000), but the point is that wealthy house-flippers don't mess around with $200k-type properties, as there's simply not enough money in it. You flip those properties if making $30,000 is a huge deal to you. Furthermore, his home in Mesquite was quite modest, and we have seen no indications that he was wealthy to the point where tens of thousands of dollars of video poker losses wouldn't faze him.



His brother said the he gambled $100 per hand at video poker. What does that mean?

$100 per hand at video poker doesn't exist, because almost everyone "max plays", which means 5 credits per hand. The credit denominations you can choose are typically $0.25, $0.50, $1, $2, $5, $10, $25, or $100. If he were to play $25 per credit, that would be $125 per hand. And yes, that's actually pretty significant. Due to the speed one can play video poker (500 hands per hour for most experienced players), that would be $62,500 wagered per hour at such a machine, resulting in an average loss of $625 per hour even at a fairly good 99% return machine. But keep in mind that video poker also has a lot of variance, and is very royal flush dependent. You only hit a royal every 40,000 hands on average, and all hands played during a royal drought will return 2% less on average. So a guy running $25 per credit on a 99% return machine WITHOUT hitting a royal will lose, on average, $1875 -- and that's if he plays perfectly. Also, some machines return less than 99%, even at high limits. Of course, we are taking his brother's word for what he was betting. It's possible he was playing $5/credit video poker (which is far more common than $25/credit), in which case the expected losses would be cut by 5x what I just stated. Still, you can EASILY lose tens of thousands in that game in a period of weeks if you're playing a lot and just not hitting royals.



How could he have snuck 17 large weapons into a Mandalay Bay hotel room? What about the maid's report that she didn't see anything when cleaning it?

I'm guessing that he let the maid clean before he snuck the weaponry in there, near the beginning of his stay. Otherwise, he could simply put up a Do Not Disturb sign for the length of his stay, which is fairly common and would not arouse any suspicion (I do it myself). Contrary to some reports I'm reading, it is NOT difficult to get 17 large weapons into a large Vegas hotel like Mandalay Bay, especially over a period of days. He simply needed to make several trips back and forth, with the guns hidden in suitcases. The hallways do not have cameras, and the security presence in these hotels is pretty low, aside from keeping the riff-raff from going up the room elevators in the evenings. Security tends to focus on the casino portion, for obvious reasons. One could easily go back and forth with 17 suitcases without detection, especially if spread over a period of 4 days. Note that he checked in on Thursday, meaning he only needed to bring up 4-5 suitcases per day at different times of the day. 100% that could be done without detection.



How could he have checked in using his girlfriend's info, especially given that he is a different gender and clearly looks nothing like her?

This is not uncommon. Hosts can pre-check you into the room, and they are happy to do this for gamblers likely to shoot off a lot of $ on -EV games. He simply needed to book it under Marilou, then have himself added as an authorized guest, and have his host pre-check-in the room. This is even easier if she is also a gambler there, and the host knows they are associated. I actually did this once for a family member who I got a hotel room, but would be at the hotel hours before me. The room was in my name, but they were able to get keys before I arrived.