GAMBLING FOR GHOSTS: Vegas Casino Offers $5,000 to Hunt Its Own Ghosts

One of Las Vegas’s oldest casinos wants someone to spend a weekend searching for the spirits that allegedly roam its halls.

Listen to “GAMBLING FOR GHOSTS: Vegas Casino Offers $5,000 to Hunt Its Own Ghosts” on Spreaker.

There’s something deeply unsettling about a casino that openly admits it might be haunted. While most businesses would try to sweep such rumors under the carpet, the El Cortez Hotel & Casino in downtown Las Vegas isn’t trying to hide its ghostly reputation at all. Instead, they’re actually offering five thousand dollars to anyone brave enough to spend a weekend documenting it. The contest runs until Halloween 2025, and the winner gets flown to Vegas, equipped with ghost-hunting gear, and set loose in a building where the past refuses to stay buried.

The Building That Started It All

When the El Cortez opened its doors on November 7, 1941, just a month before Pearl Harbor would change America forever, three men named J.K. Houssels, John Grayson, and Marion Hicks had no idea they were creating what would become one of Las Vegas’s most enduring mysteries. They built what was then Downtown Las Vegas’ first luxury hotel-casino, and the timing was perfect. Las Vegas was transforming from a dusty desert railroad stop into something far more ambitious, and the El Cortez positioned itself right at the heart of that transformation.

The partners spent $245,000 on their resort, which was serious money in 1941. The property debuted with restaurants, a floor show, hotel rooms, and that ranch-style architecture that was becoming popular in the Southwest. Originally built with just 59 rooms, the property sat at the corner of Sixth and Fremont streets, a location that some investors initially considered too far from downtown to succeed. They were wrong about that.

The hotel changed everything about its corner of Las Vegas, becoming a beacon that drew gamblers and tourists alike. But it was what happened four years after opening that would forever alter the El Cortez’s destiny. In 1945, a group of notorious mobsters including Bugsy Siegel, Meyer Lansky, Moe Sedway and Gus Greenbaum purchased the property. The mob connection wasn’t unusual for Vegas in those days; what was unusual was how quickly they decided to sell it. By 1946, barely a year later, Siegel and his partners sold the El Cortez back to John Kell Houssels, using the profits to complete another project that Siegel had become obsessed with: the Flamingo.

Houssels got his hotel back, but something had changed during that brief year of mob ownership. The fingerprints of organized crime remained on the property, and those fingerprints became part of the walls, part of the atmosphere, part of something that still walks the hallways today.

Jackie Gaughan Takes the Reins

The year 1963 brought another major change when a Nebraska transplant named Jackie Gaughan purchased the property. Jackie wasn’t just another casino owner looking to make a quick buck; he was a downtown Las Vegas institution, a man who understood that gambling was about more than just taking people’s money. Over the years, he owned or had stakes in an empire that included the Flamingo, Showboat, Plaza, Golden Nugget, Las Vegas Club, Gold Spike, and Western Hotel. At his peak, Gaughan had managed to accumulate more than 25 percent of all the available downtown real estate, including more than 20 acres of undeveloped land that he held onto like a poker player holding pocket aces.

But the El Cortez was different for Gaughan, and everyone who knew him could see it. This wasn’t just another property in his portfolio; this was home. He and his wife, Roberta Mae, transformed the top floor of the hotel tower into their private residence, where they lived for over 30 years, right above the casino floor where fortunes were won and lost every single night. Jackie would walk that casino floor daily, wearing his trademark plaid sport coats that became as much a part of the El Cortez as the slot machines themselves. He greeted customers by name, remembered their favorite drinks, asked about their families. The man was never too important to pick up an empty glass or clean an ashtray if he saw one that needed attention.

Under his leadership, the El Cortez became one of the first casinos to bring a genuinely customer-friendly atmosphere to downtown Vegas, focusing on service and loyalty rather than just extracting every possible dollar from visitors. Jackie invented the Fun Book, those coupon booklets filled with free drinks, free slot pulls and two-for-one dinners that made regular folks feel like high rollers.

The building itself expanded significantly during Gaughan’s ownership. The 15-story hotel tower built in 1980 added 200 guest rooms and suites to the property, modernizing the El Cortez while somehow maintaining its vintage charm. In 2009, the 64-room Cabana Suites were completed in what used to be the Ogden House apartments, bringing the total room count to 364. Each expansion brought new spaces, new corners, new places for shadows to gather and stories to accumulate.

Dark Discoveries in the Basement

As the years rolled by, the paranormal stories started accumulating in the El Cortez like cigarette smoke in the old carpets, impossible to completely remove no matter how hard anyone tried. Employees began sharing experiences they couldn’t explain, things they’d seen that shouldn’t have been there. They’ve reported transparent white disembodied hands reaching out from the darkness in rooms that were supposed to be entirely empty. Guests staying in the Cabana Suites have reported hearing loud, repetitive knocks on their doors in the middle of the night, only to discover that no one else was staying on that entire floor. The knocking would continue, methodical and insistent, until dawn finally broke.

Others have seen shadowy figures in the corners of rooms, standing perfectly still and silent like they’re waiting for something. These figures vanish the moment someone turns to look at them directly, leaving nothing but a cold spot in the air and the uncomfortable feeling that you’re never really alone in the El Cortez.

The basement holds the darkest secrets of all. According to stories that have been whispered among employees for decades, workers doing renovations years ago discovered something horrible down there. The cremated remains of several people were found in the basement, and these weren’t just random individuals. The rumors say these ashes included some of Bugsy Siegel’s rivals, people who had crossed the wrong mobster at the wrong time. The basement also allegedly contained the remains of former employees who had no family to claim them, people who had worked at the El Cortez and then simply disappeared from the world, leaving nothing behind but ash and memory.

Employees have avoided the basement whenever possible ever since. One employee documented their experience on Tripadvisor, describing how they were in the basement when they noticed that two rooms to the right of the elevator were supposed to be vacant. That’s when one of the doors opened by itself, releasing the distinct sound of water running down pipes to a hole in the floor, even though those rooms had been empty for years.

Fat Irish Green Never Checks Out

Among all the spirits said to haunt the El Cortez, one particular ghost has become legendary. His name was Fat Irish Green, and he was a former mobster who’d been associated with Bugsy Siegel back in the 1940s. The story of Fat Irish Green perfectly captures the strange loyalty and bizarre honor codes that existed in the old Vegas mob world.

In exchange for guarding a suitcase full of Bugsy Siegel’s rather dubiously procured cash, Green was granted free room and board at the El Cortez for life. Not just for a few years, not until Siegel got tired of the arrangement, but for life. It was the kind of deal that only made sense in the mob world, where loyalty was everything and a man’s word, once given, was absolute.

The fascinating part is what happened after Siegel was gone. When Jackie Gaughan took over the El Cortez in 1963, he discovered this unusual arrangement was still in place. Fat Irish Green was still living in the hotel, still not paying a dime, nearly twenty years after the original deal was made. When Gaughan asked Green to finally pay his hotel bill, which had been accumulating for more than fifteen years, Green’s response was pure Vegas old-timer stubbornness. He simply said, “I never paid any rent and I don’t have to pay any rent.”

Gaughan, being a practical businessman, tried to get rid of his non-paying guest. He called up Houssels and asked him to let Green move to the Tropicana. Houssels’s response was basically, “Sorry, he went with the deal.” You bought the hotel, you bought Fat Irish Green too.

Then Gaughan noticed that Green liked to eat four blocks west at Benny Binion’s Horseshoe casino. So he called up Binion and asked if he’d provide Green with a room there instead. Binion’s response perfectly captured the weird loyalty these old Vegas guys had for each other: “I feed Irish for nothin’. You got to keep him at the hotel for nothin’.”

So Fat Irish Green stayed at the El Cortez, living for free until the day he died. But the story gets darker still. Green’s remains are said to be among those ashes discovered in the El Cortez basement, mixed with those of other former employees who had no family to claim them. He rests in the very foundations of the building where he spent so many years.

People still report seeing him. The apparition of Fat Irish Green appears in the hallways of the El Cortez, still holding that suitcase filled with illegal cash that he was supposed to guard for Siegel. Some say he’s still on duty, still guarding money for a boss who was gunned down in 1947, still honoring a deal that should have ended decades ago.

Five Thousand Dollars for Proof

Which brings us to October 2025, and an unusual contest that’s caught the attention of ghost hunters and thrill seekers across the country. Casino.org wants definitive proof of what so many people claim to have experienced at the El Cortez. They’re willing to pay handsomely for it.

The winning applicant receives the full Vegas treatment: a free flight to Las Vegas, a weekend stay at the El Cortez, access to all those allegedly haunted areas that are usually off-limits to guests, and professional ghost-hunting equipment, including specialized flashlights and thermal sensors. Upon acceptance, the winner gets $500 upfront to cover food, drinks, and any additional ghost-hunting equipment they might want to purchase. The flights and accommodation are covered separately, worth about $800.

The winner has specific tasks to complete to earn that five thousand dollar prize. They must explore the entire property, walking through the hotel corridors, the casino floor, and especially those areas rumored to be haunted. The basement, if they can handle it. The empty rooms where hands reach from darkness. All of it, preferably at night when the activity is said to be strongest.

They’ll use EMF meters to detect electromagnetic fields, EVP recorders to capture electronic voice phenomena, specialized flashlights that spirits can allegedly manipulate, and thermal sensors to identify those mysterious cold spots. Everything the winner witnesses must be photographed and carefully documented. No documentation, no prize money.

The timeline is strict. The winner must travel to Vegas and complete their investigation by December 8th, then submit all their documentation by December 10th, 2025. Only after the documentation is submitted and verified will the winner be paid the remaining $3,250 of their prize money.

The El Cortez itself wants nothing to do with this contest. When asked about it, a spokesperson told The New York Post, “El Cortez Hotel & Casino is aware of a recent online contest promotion related to a ‘Vegas Ghost Hunt’ and is not affiliated in any way with this contest or its organizers.”

They didn’t deny the possibility of paranormal guests roaming their halls. They didn’t claim their casino isn’t haunted. They just want it very clear that they’re not the ones asking anyone to come looking for ghosts. It’s almost like they know something is there, and they’d prefer it stay undisturbed.

Preserving the Past

The El Cortez’s story continued to evolve even after Jackie Gaughan grew older. In 2008, he sold the property to Kenny Epstein, who had been his business partner since the 1950s. Epstein understood what he was buying: not just a casino, but a piece of Las Vegas history that needed to be preserved. Over the next decade, Epstein and his business partners poured more than $50 million of renovations into the property, modernizing what needed to be modernized while keeping the soul of the place intact.

Jackie Gaughan, even after selling, couldn’t let go of his beloved El Cortez. He continued living at the casino, maintaining his residence in that penthouse he’d shared with his wife for so many years. He played poker in the poker room, walked through the casino, greeted old friends and employees. He remained there until his death on March 12, 2014, at the age of 93.

After Jackie passed away, the new owners preserved his 2,700 square foot penthouse exactly as he left it, turning it into “The Jackie Gaughan Suite.” Nothing was changed, nothing was modernized. It was left frozen in time and made available for bookings at $1,000 a night, allowing visitors to experience a piece of his life and his strong connection to the hotel.

In February 2013, before Jackie’s death, the El Cortez achieved something no other operating casino had managed: the structure was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. As of that same year, it was officially recognized as the oldest continuously operating casino in Las Vegas.

Where Past and Present Collide

Today, the El Cortez still sits at 600 East Fremont Street, just a block from the Fremont Street Experience but somehow existing in a different era entirely. While the Fremont Street Experience offers LED canopies and zip lines, the El Cortez offers a direct connection to the Vegas that used to be, complete with whatever refuses to leave.

The hotel continues operating much as it always has. There’s a restaurant, a fitness center, and a business center for the living guests. The casino caters to both casual players and serious gamblers, with slot machines that are reportedly 40% looser than anywhere else in Vegas. The bars pour drinks, the dealers shuffle cards, and the dice roll across the craps tables.

Many attribute the paranormal activity to the El Cortez’s deep involvement with notorious figures like Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky. The mob activity of the distant past seems to find its echo in the supernatural activity that continues today. Perhaps some debts can never be paid, some deals never concluded, some guardians never relieved of their duty.

The activity in the hotel’s basement continues to keep employees away. Phantom footsteps echo in empty hallways when the casino grows quiet in the early morning hours. Cold spots appear without warning in the middle of the desert heat. Transparent hands reach from darkness as if trying to grab hold of something solid. The knocks on doors in vacant sections of the hotel continue, patient and persistent, as if someone’s been waiting decades for an answer.

Applications for the ghost hunting contest are open until Halloween, October 31st, 2025, at 12 pm EST. The contest is only open to US applicants aged 21 and over. Whether the winner finds definitive evidence of the paranormal or just spends a weekend wandering through one of Vegas’s most historically significant properties, they’ll walk away with five thousand dollars and a story that connects them directly to decades of Las Vegas history.

The El Cortez continues operating today just as it has since 1941, serving drinks to the thirsty, dealing cards to the hopeful, and harboring whatever refuses to leave. The neon sign still glows against the desert night, that same sign that’s been there since the 1940s, calling to gamblers and ghost hunters alike. The ghosts, if they truly exist, aren’t going anywhere. They’ve been part of the deal since 1945, written into the contract in invisible ink, and every owner since has honored that contract, whether they wanted to or not.

After all, in Vegas, a deal’s a deal, even when one party has been dead for decades.

References

NOTE: Some of this content may have been created with assistance from AI tools, but it has been reviewed, edited, narrated, produced, and approved by Darren Marlar, creator and host of Weird Darkness — who, despite popular conspiracy theories, is NOT an AI voice.