One Dead after Fight at Aquarius Casino Resort in Laughlin, Nevada

It should have been an enjoyable experience, a chance to get out and forget about the routines and the stresses of the daily grind. However, for one casino patron, and the casino he was visiting, it turned into something much darker. A patron hitting the gaming floor at the Aquarius Casino Resort in Laughlin, NV, is dead following an altercation that occurred late last week.

Aquarius Casino Becomes a Crime Scene

Details of what transpired are still sketchy, despite cameras recording every inch of the casino floor, but what has been released to the media so far paints a picture of two groups of people getting mixed up in a verbal altercation at the Aquarius early Friday morning. According to Fox 5 News, one thing led to another and, as tempers flared, the fight moved beyond a war of words into a physical confrontation. That escalation resulted in one individual reportedly receiving a blow, or blows, that rendered him unconscious.

By the time the police arrived, the group of people had scattered. What remained was the unresponsive victim on the casino floor. He was quickly transported to a local hospital, but he reportedly had received significant trauma during the attack, enough to result in his death. Details of what led to the altercation and how many people may have been involved have not yet been released. There was at least one bystander who witnessed the ordeal, but who wasn’t involved, and police are now tracking down everyone who may or may not have participated. Undoubtedly, the fatal blow will have been recorded on surveillance footage.

Casinos Attract All Kinds of People

There are no limits to the types of people that visit casinos – Hollywood’s portrayal of casino patrons being of a certain upper class with different standards than others is a fairy tale. There have been a number of high-profile incidents at casinos in and around Las Vegas, as well as the rest of the world, since the first gambling properties opened, and the Aquarius is no exception. It has also, like many other venues, been in the middle of a real-life game of cops and robbers before.

Two years ago, Michael Todd Lopez thought he could pull off a theft of the Aquarius, perhaps after watching reruns of Oceans 11 too many times. The 69-year-old would-be casino robber tried to rob the casino cages at two properties and failed both times. The last attempt was made at the Aquarius, and Lopez didn’t make it very far. He ended up in a shootout with police officers in the casino parking lot and, during that back-and-forth exchange of gunfire, Lopez was killed in what could only be deemed a suicide-by-cop ending.