Update - Spoke with the "risk management" person, Michelle M last week. She said the Hotel is self insured and therefore they conduct their own investigation to determine liability.
Heard back from Michelle today. She wrote; "We checked the avenue of video coverage to see if we could locate a suspect for your loss and this yielded negative results." Not even sure what "avenue of video coverage" really means.
I accept that part of this was my responsibility. Ray is right that my wallet is more secure than the room. Part of the reason for posting is so others don't make the same mistake. I'm sure most poker players don't stay at the Westgate.
I usually stay with friends or a night or two at the RIO during the WSOP. Didn't hear about the room robbery at RIO until this post. Only about the Legionnaires disease breakout.
I did file a Police report - it is a felony to file a false report.
all hotels get room robberies but dont advertise them. and are not likely to tell you the truth about what they found as they worry more about covering their butt.
the old saying never leave valuables in your room is true as you found out. same way with those funky safes they put in the room.
as a good rule like i said keep your money with you and if going to a place of worry split it up so they only get a small amount.
many casinos will let you keep cash money on deposit or rent or give you a box in the cage.
a few thousand fits in a money belt or in your sock,or shoe easily.
Keeping your money in the safe is better than keeping it elsewhere in the room but I still wouldn't store any money in them that I wasn't comfortable losing. None of those room safes are particularly high quality. I wouldn't expect that they would be terribly difficult to forcibly open. Also, there have been cases of master codes being used to steal items from them.
I would highly recommend a concealed money belt. I have one from Hiplock that can hold like $20k. If you have a hundred bills in it nobody will be any the wiser and it's so comfortable that you will probably forget that you have it on. You just have to take it off when going through airport security.
While some casinos do have boxes, I believe that most of them do not anymore. A few years ago I contacted a bunch of properties about getting a box and none of the CET strip casinos offered that as an option. They all have room safes instead.
Keeping your money in the safe is better than keeping it elsewhere in the room but I still wouldn't store any money in them that I wasn't comfortable losing.
At the Flamingo once I was in a room that had a safe in the closet. The safe was not bolted down, so a thief could conceivably have walked out with the entire thing.
Most, excluding all CET properties on the strip? As I stated, I tried to do this during the WSOP a few years back and reached out too Paris, Bally's, Flamingo, and Cromwell and they all told me they did not offer boxes anymore. I spoke to many different people and nobody gave me a safe deposit option. I heard RIO had boxes (off-strip) but they were all spoken for. People I knew were getting boxes at the Tuscany which is off strip.
