Circus Circus is one of the most unique family-friendly hotel casinos on the Las Vegas Strip. It features an enormous casino, more than 3,700 guest rooms and suites, the renowned Adventure Dome Theme Park and the largest stationary circus in the entire world. With nearly 50 years under its belt and a seedy past that involves heavy involvement from known organized crime outfits, there has certainly been enough history to question whether the Circus Circus Casino Hotel is haunted.
Built in 1968, Circus Circus was the innovation of one Jay Sarno, the very same man who, just 6 years before, conceived Caesar’s Palace, complete with Roman-inspired statuesque ornamentation. While his first creation was certainly one of the most original and elaborate structures Las Vegas had ever seen in that time period, Circus Circus took the cake. Sarno’s only mistake was choosing to build a circus-themed casino, without the inclusion of a hotel on the property.
It wasn’t long before Circus Circus was falling heavily into the red. Without accommodations, high rollers had no reason to play at Circus Circus. No rooms means no complimentary stay in a penthouse suite; something every high roller greatly anticipates when visiting the Las Vegas Strip. With no money left, Sarno utilized a familiar tactic. Just as he had borrowed $35 million from the Teamsters to erect Caesar’s Palace in 1962, he borrowed another $23 million to establish a hotel in conjunction with the Circus Circus Casino. To get the loan, he had to agree to let Anthony Spilotro of the Chicago mafia, under an assumed name, run a gift shop at the hotel.
Thus Sarno had once more sunk himself into a mob-related endeavor and it wasn’t long before he was being investigated in connection with organized crime and tax fraud. In heavy debt and fear of the authorities, Sarno sold out by 1974. Since then, Circus Circus has seen numerous expansions and is now one of the most recognized casino hotels in Las Vegas, featured in multiple Hollywood films; James Bond: Diamonds are Forever, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Baby Geniuses, Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery and several others.
There is no recorded number of how many people met an untimely demise at the Circus Circus. It is said that more than a few have “fallen” from the windows (likely attributed to the mob-controlled days). There is a widely circulated story that a woman was staying at the hotel with her child in room 123 when, for an unknown reason, she shot her little boy and herself.
Room 123 at Circus Circus is said to be haunted by the mother and the little boy, searching for her husband and the boy’s father. Less believable rumors speculate that he was a dark-haired man named Robert and that anyone staying in the room by that name/appearance will be murdered—more specifically hung from the ceiling—but there is absolutely no evidence to support such a bizarre claim, just the wild imagination of story tellers.
Other reports speak of disembodied voices crying, in some cases screaming, for help in the poker room, as well as room 203, where the call for help begins as a whisper but quickly rises to blood curdling screams for help. A 20-year employee of the Circus Circus, now retired, vehemently claims that 3 people were killed in the kitchen all in one night, though there are no known hauntings associated with that tale.
Other guest rooms said to exude paranormal activity at Circus Circus are 230 and 576. Are these just spooky myths made up by pranksters with nothing better to do, or perhaps by the hotel’s higher-ups hoping to draw fans of the preternatural to the hotel during its annual Halloween extravaganza? Does a suicidal mother and her ill-fated child have unfinished business? Are the resounding cries of help from past prey of the Chicago Outfit echoing throughout the haunted casino in Las Vegas? The questions keep coming, but without more supportive evidence, the answers are as elusive as the ghosts themselves.