It's hard to imagine something as unusual as the largest ball of rubber bands or the farthest milk squirt from your eye, but that's what world records are, bizarre and seemingly impossible to beat. The records aren't just made for the athletic arena, but for the common Joe at the grocery store, at home, in the shower, or on a wire tied between two tall towers. The best part about trying to break a world record is how easy it is to find people who want to help. Record breaking cannot only draw crowds, but it's a great way to kick off a celebration.
For years, casinos have been the site of many great world records, on and off, the casino floor. The following world records are some of the best in the gaming industry.
The farthest playing card throw was Rick Smith, Jr., which reached 216 feet, 4 inches, at 92 mph. Smith is a magician, known for his work with playing cards. He achieved this record on March 21, 2002 in Cleveland Ohio, the record was broken by more than 15 feet. He later put together a collection of instructional videos and pitched it to 5 big time investors on the prime time show, Shark Tank. He also made an appearance on Season 5 of America’s Got Talent.
The largest fan of playing cards is currently held by Ralf Laue and was set in March of 1994. Laue held 326 cards in a fan formation with the color and value of each card visible. Ralf Laue has beaten this record several times and has been battling George Stefandis since 1988. These two German natives have swapped world records four times. Laue has set many other records in the past including letter opening, pancake flipping, and fastest game of Operation.
Believe it or not building a house of cards isn’t just for rainy days without cable. In 2004, American Architect Bryan Berg spent 44 days constructing the largest “house” of cards in history. Berg used 218,792 cards, roughly over 4,000 decks, to build a free standing replica of the Venetian Casino in Macau, China, one of the top casinos in the world. If you were to lay down the cards, end to end, they would cover more than 10 miles. No tape or glue was used during this construction, and 10 days after he finished, Berg knocked the whole thing down to prove it.
Casinos aren’t just made for gambling anymore. They have been made and created to appeal to all types of audiences. Casinos will often hold conventions and tradeshows, which brings us to the largest wedding cake, ever, for a New England Bridal Expo back in 2004. The seven-tiered, 13,000-pound, 17 feet tall Mohegan Sun wedding cake was vanilla flavored and decorated with chocolate bows and hearts. Ingredients include: 10,000 pounds of Rich Pound Cake Batter and 4,810 pounds of rich creamy frosting with a rich taste of vanilla and almond. The cake fed 59,000 people.
Black Bear Casino Resort near Carlton, Minnesota holds the record for the world’s biggest bacon cheeseburger. Weighing in at 2,014 pounds, the massive burger was part of the casino’s Big Burger Bash in 2012. Guinness Records was in attendance to document the achievement which bested the previous record-holder of only 881 pounds. The colossal burger measured 10 feet in diameter and consisted of 40 pounds of cheese, 60 pounds of bacon, 40 pounds of pickles, 50 pounds of lettuce and 50 pounds of sliced onions. A crane was used to flip the giant patty and took about four hours to cook. The burger was estimated to contain a whopping 4.1 million calories! When it was done, all of the gamblers got to help eat it.
What’s the best way to celebrate the opening of a new parking garage at a casino? With a world record guitar smashing, of course! That’s exactly what Seminole Hard Rock Hotel & Casino in Hollywood, FL did back in 2010. Guinness Records was in attendance to document all 1,914 participants smash the acoustic guitars as part of the grand opening celebration. “Why would anyone want to destroy so many perfectly good guitars?” you might ask. Don’t worry; they were non-musician-quality guitars. Additionally, Seminole Hard Rock donated $50,000 worth of real guitars to local schools in support of music education.
A typical work day for a full-time casino dealer is 8 hours, one hour of dealing and a 20 minute break. Occasionally, the boss will leave you on the table if you are running hot, which means that you are taking player’s money. That’s exactly what they would have had to do with this Blackjack dealer. Stephen De Raffaele, of Malta (home of the familiar Malta Gaming Authority (MGA), known for licencing some of to the top casinos on the planet), spent 51 hours and 33 minutes dealing Blackjack on August 24-27 in 2001 at the Oracle Casino. He stopped every 8 hours for a 15 minute break. Raffaele knew that he wanted to do something great as soon as he completed his training in 1997.
Slot machines are a heavy favorite in most land-based and online casinos. In Las Vegas they have a citizen to slot machine ratio of 8 to 1. So it was no surprise when one of the largest casinos in the U.S. achieved the world record for Largest Slot Machine Tournament. In April 2013, the Mohegan Sun in Uncasville, Connecticut and Bally Technologies’ software powered approximately 1,100 slot machines for more than 5,000 participants. Two heats were played in a 24-hour period. The top 200 players won a combined jackpot of $100,000 and the winner of the tournament won $50,000 in cash.
Not too long after the Mohegan Sun Casino and Bally Technologies scored the Largest Slot Machine Tournament record, they broke the record for most slot machines running the same game simultaneously. Actually it happened the same day in April 2013. A crowd formed a line ringing the casino at around 6 a.m. to register for the contest and one of 200 prizes. Over 1,600 slot machines ran the same game, Bally’s popular video slot Hot Shot, at the same time. Mohegan Sun hosts three casinos, Casino of the Earth, Casino of the Sky and Casino of the Wind, and nearly 6,000 slot machines.
Casinos are always trying to one-up each other with bigger and better everything. That was Viejas Casino’s idea when it constructed the world’s largest Blackjack table to commemorate its 21st anniversary in September 2012. While a standard Blackjack table is 18.5 square feet, this table measured an enormous 2,226 square feet! They also created huge playing cards and casino chips to match the scale of the table. Over 2200 guests came in to play a free hand at the gigantic Blackjack table.
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