Las Vegas mass shooter may have ‘snapped’ at casinos for treatment of high-rollers, FBI documents reveal

The latest headlines from our reporters across the US sent straight to your inbox each weekday Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US Your briefing on the latest headlines from across the US SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Paddock, a professional gambler who frequented casinos in Las Vegas and Nevada, was “very upset at the way casinos were treating him and other high rollers,” one source told the FBI, according to the heavily redacted documents, which were released in response to a records request from the Wall Street Journal. Previously, the source said that Paddock was a “really nice and personably guy” whom they “would gladly have invited over for dinner,” but speculated the “the stress could easily be what caused Paddock to ‘snap’.” The documents describe the 64-year-old, who died by suicide, as a high-rolling, skilled gambler, who was “frequently banned from casinos for playing well and winning large quantities of money” and played video poker so he could still net big winnings without facing scrutiny at the poker tables. Sources told the agency Paddock was “easily able to purchase property and houses with cash.” open image in gallery Eric Paddock holds a photo of himself, at left, and his brother, Las Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock In another section, a source describes Paddock as only wanting to talk about gambling, and having stayed for two days at the Tropicana Las Vegas less than a month before the shooting, where he lost $38,000. open image in gallery Damaged windows on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Hotel in Las Vegas through which Paddock fired In 2018, then-Clark County sheriff Joseph Lombardo’s officer found that Paddock’s bank accounts fell from $2.1m in value to $530,000 in the two years before the attack, but the sheriff said investigators couldn’t “definitively answer the why.”