The man behind the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history was upset that he wasn’t receiving the high-roller treatment he expected from Las Vegas casinos. According to the Associated Press, the high-stakes gambler who slaughtered 60 country music fans and injured more than 800 at the 2017 Route 91 Harvest Fest could easily have snapped due to the slight based on an FBI interview with a fellow gambler.
The new information is based on hundreds of documents that were made public this week, with the gambler — whose name is redacted in the docs — telling authorities that gunman Stephen Paddock, 64, was a video poker player who relied on gambling as a primary source of income.
Paddock set up a sniper’s nest from the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel and fired more than 1,000 rounds into the 22,000-person crowd gathered below for a country music festival in a parking lot using high-powered rifles augmented by “bump stocks” that made them similar to automatic firearms. Police said Paddock had 14 military-style AR-15 rifles, eight AR-10 rifles, a handgun and another rifle, with some of the long guns equipped with 100-round magazines.
The shooting erupted on the third night during singer Jason Aldean’s set and ended when police breached the shooter’s barricaded room, where they found him dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The information from the fellow gambler comes years after the FBI and Las Vegas PD concluded their investigation without nailing down a definitive motive for the mass shooting. The AP noted that both agencies found that Paddock had spent more than $1.5 million near the end of his life and had become obsessed with guns.
The LVPD defended their inconclusive findings on Thursday in the wake of the new information, saying, “We were unable to determine a motive for the shooter. Speculating on a motive causes more harm to the hundreds of people who were victims that night.” But the AP reported that the new documents provide more insight into Paddock’s mindset via interviews with neighbors, friends and employees at the casinos he frequented.
The interviewees described Paddock as a “strange” introvert who never made eye contact and only ever wanted to discuss gambling, with the unnamed fellow gambler saying that the shooter had become “very upset” that the typical red-carpet treatment lavished on high-rollers — including free cruises, flights and penthouse suites — was fading away; Paddock had reportedly been banned from three casinos in Reno.
“If we ever discover a motive, whether it’s 10 years from now, 20 years from now, I have faith that LVMPD would contact victims first before making something public,” said Las Vegas Metropolitan PD official Kelly McMahill. “It’s the right thing to do.”
