They say that what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. But could that also apply to who? Judging by the strange goings on at one of Sin City’s most famous casino resorts, it could be that someone – or something – has stayed in Vegas when it should have moved on to another realm.
About the Luxor
The hotel and casino complex is not your typical spot for hauntings. It is relatively new, construction having been completed less than 30 years ago, and has similar facilities to the other major casinos on The Strip, with more than 4,400 guest rooms, dozens of restaurants and cafes and of course the immense casino, which features real-world versions of the online casino slots and table games you might play on your phone.
But it also has something extra that you won’t find at Caesar’s Palace or the Bellagio – a reputation for the supernatural and an alarmingly high mortality rate among its guests.
The body count rises – and rises
The trouble started before the Luxor was even ready for its first paying guest to book in. A wall unaccountably collapsed during construction killing at least two and possibly as many as seven construction workers. Exact details are still hard to ascertain as the hotel strove to keep the story quiet. Even then they understood that Las Vegas will accept most things – but not an “unlucky” casino.
The first guest to meet an untimely demise was actually a “guest of a guest.” A prostitute unaccountably plummeted from a window on the 26th floor, landing in the area now occupied by the food court. Guests say her spirit still wanders the corridors up there 25 years later.
In 2010, a rising football star, UNLV’s Demario Reynolds got into the middle of a domestic dispute between MMA fighter Jason Sindelar and his wife when all three were guests at the Luxor. Sindelar lashed out, Reynolds fell unconscious and never woke up.
Then there were three bizarre deaths within weeks of each other in 2012. An employee was murdered in the lobby, in full view of hundreds of guests, when her boyfriend seemingly lost his mind and launched a frenzied attack on her. By the time he was restrained, it was too late. Soon after, a US airman managed to accidentally access a lift shaft and fell to his death. And then a guest died from Legionnaire’s Disease – just after tests came back negative and then retested as positive.
A curse? Or something else?
There are several theories as to what might be behind the incidents. Egyptologists have been quick to spot that while the real pyramids are protected by a Sphinx facing in each direction, the Luxor only has one facing east. Has this allowed something to get in from the west? Another theory is that the deaths are actually mob hits, hidden behind the smokescreen of a curse legend.
There’s a third option, too, and it’s one that any regular visitor to Vegas will recognise. It could just be that the Luxor is has been through a 30 year losing streak. If so, surely its luck will have to turn soon.
