The high-stakes gambler who opened fire on attendees of the Route 91 Harvest music festival on the Las Vegas Strip had lost tens of thousands of dollars gambling weeks before the mass shooting and was upset at how the casinos had processed it, according to FBI documents released this week.
The 300-page document details the strongest indication of a motive for the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history. They paint a detailed account of gunman Stephen Paddock’s last days before the October 1, 2017 shooting that killed 60 people and injured hundreds more.
A player whose name is obscured among the hundreds of pages of documents told the FBI that Paddock “was very upset with the way the casinos were treating him and other high rollers”.
This person described Paddock as being classified as a “high roller” and having a budget of $2-3 million. He also mentions that Paddock frequented Atlantis, Peppermill, and Tamarack Junction casinos in Reno “and was banned from all three.”
“He was personally upset and stressed by the treatment he and other big players have received in recent years and thought the stress could easily be what ‘blew’ Paddock up. (…) he thought the hotel Mandalay Bay did not treat Paddock well because a player of his status should have been on a higher floor in a penthouse suite,” the report said.
Neither the FBI nor the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department provided an official reason for the shooting. Both agencies said Paddock acted alone.
The 10-minute massacre took place on the final night of the three-day festival opposite the resort town of Mandalay Bay. Authorities said Paddock, 64, fired into the festival crowd from his 32nd-floor corner suite in Mandalay Bay.