Gambler Sues Casino After Losing $500,000 While Playing Drunk

52-year-old businessman from California filed a lawsuit against the Downtown Grand

By Jenna Mullins Mar 06, 2014 6:01 PMTags
Craps tableJames Richey

Whatever happens in Vegas...could lead to a lawsuit. That's the saying, right? Well, the city should change their motto it to that.

Mark Johnston, a 52-year-old businessman from Southern California, is suing the Vegas hotel Downtown Grand after he got drunk and lost $500,000. Yes, you read that right. Half a million bucks down the toilet because Mark had a bit too many daiquiris.

(Disclaimer: We don't actually know if he drank daiquiris that night.)

Mark claims that because he was so intoxicated, the casino should have not let him gamble and they definitely shouldn't have kept serving him. And anyone who has been to Vegas knows it's against Nevada law to allow inebriated folks to gamble and/or continue to give them free drinks at the tables, riiiiight?

"I feel like they picked my pockets," he told NBC's Las Vegas affiliate. "I feel…like a drunk guy walking down the street, and you reach in his pockets and grab all his money."

According to the lawsuit, Johnston arrived in Vegas during Super Bowl weekend, and after drinking in the limo from the airport and at dinner with friends, he blacked out. He alleges that the hotel kept giving him free drinks and allowed him to gamble away thousands and thousands of dollars. On Saturday, Feb. 1, he woke up to find out how much he had lost.

So, it's kind of like The Hangover if Bradley Cooper and Co. also lost half a million dollars and also they didn't make any more Hangover movies because the first one was great, and the rest were not.

But we digress.

So this guy says getting drunk and losing a crazy amount of money is a lawsuit. We say it's just another weekend in Vegas.