NYE in Vegas/Caesar's Palace - thief went in our room while we slept and took $460

[JETFIRE714]

I just got back from the worse Vegas trip that I can recall.

We got into Caesar's right before midnight on 12/30. Checked in and got settled in by 12:15 AM. Bellhop delivers our luggage between 12:30 AM and 12:45 AM and we gave him a $20 tip from my wife's wallet and the wallet was placed at the foot of the bed. At around 1:20 AM my mom goes down to the casino and doesn't return until 6:46 AM. My dad leaves the room at 2:09 AM and proceeds down to the casino. At 2:10 AM, there's an anomaly, someone scans the lock but does not enter the room (front desk said this was wierd and couldn't explain it). At this time my wife was still awake and made sure the door was closed, turns off all the light except for the one in the bathroom. At 3:13 my dad enters the room, gets ready for bed and plugs his iphone into an open outlet in the bathroom. I wake up at around 6:15 AM (I was the driver and fell asleep with my Submariner on my wrist)... I used the restroom and noticed that my wife's wallet was next to the sink. I thought it looked out of place but I didn't question it. At 6:46 AM I hear my mom scanning her room key and greet her. At 10 AM, I get a call from my wife asking if I had taken the $460 from he wallet. We searched everywhere in the room and could not find the cash and that's when I called Caesar's Palace Security.

They conducted their investigation and concluded that the door was left ajar from 3:13 AM to 6:46 AM. This means the door was either left open by using the deadbolt or the door may have appeared to be closed but did not actually close. I tested the door to see if I could make it stay open but everytime, the automatic locking mechanism would lock the door.

Apparently their locks are fairly sophisticated as it can tell when someone scans the key card, if they entered from the outside, if somone from inside exited the room and if the door is left open. Security and the front desk has something called the LOCK INTERROGATION REPORT, which is a log for all of these occurrences. They would not provide me with a copy. They stated that the last thing on the log was the door being left ajar at 3:13 AM and my mom enetering at 6:46 AM.

I suppose it was the perfect storm, the automatic locking mechanism failed to work and we had a thief/doorpusher go into our room while we were asleep, locate the wallet at the foot of the bed and empty out the cash in the bathroom.

We are lucky it was only $460 dollars and we are safe. What if one of my family members had woken up during the theft. If the thief had only looked at the table, he or she could have taken my wife's Rolex Datejust and wedding ring and we would have been down north of $22k.

JP