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I Had a Dream Life Covering Pop Culture. My Gambling Landed Me in a Vegas Jail

I owed casinos thousands of dollars and was arrested on arrival in Sin City

I Had a Dream Life Covering Pop Culture. My Gambling Landed Me in a Vegas Jail

I owed casinos thousands of dollars and was arrested on arrival in Sin City

Published 6:30, OCTOBER 17, 2026

Las Vegas was my favourite place on Earth. I’ve lost count of how many times I made the pilgrimage. I went on assignment for MuchMusic and ET Canada. I travelled with hometown friends, with family, even alone, and with shady gambling friends.

Vegas was the greatest gift a growing gambler could ever wish for—and the biggest curse I never saw coming. I had casino markers to pay back. A marker is like a loan; if a casino thinks that you’re a gambler in good standing, they will gladly give you the amount of the marker in casino chips. The assumption here is that you will faithfully gamble all those chips at their casino . . . and then presumably lose it all. As everyone knows, the odds are always in favour of the house. But what if you win big? No problem. Pay back the marker in casino chips on your way out. But what if you lost it all? No problem. You still had sixty days to settle your bill.

And I wasn’t taking my debt seriously. To me, as long as I gave the casinos back something, the matter didn’t seem urgent. That’s how credit cards work: after you pay the monthly minimum, the credit card companies leave you alone—and sometimes offer you even more credit.

I made matters worse when I never answered my phone when they called me. With my phone on silent mode, if I received a 702 area code, I rightly assumed it was one of the casinos. I would then make a small effort to wire each of them a little money. Then I would call the casino credit departments.

“Hi, it’s Rick Campanelli, account number XXX-XXXX. I just wanted to let you know that I wired you some money. Please check your account over the next couple of days. Have a nice day.” The credit department reps always thanked me, and that was the end of the conversation. The world seemed fine.

What I didn’t know was that a different department at the casinos handled truant gamblers. This was the internal collections department, and no, they weren’t nearly as flexible as the credit card companies. They never appreciated my partial payments. And after sixty days of leniency, they wanted all of their marker money back immediately!

What I also didn’t know was that these internal collections departments had given me ample warning about their hardline positions, through registered letters demanding payment addressed to my former Queens Quay address. However, the staff at Queens Quay didn’t know where to forward them.

This cat-and-mouse game with the casinos lasted a full six months past my due dates. By the time November 2009 rolled around, I had paid back only $18,000 (US) of my outstanding $35,000.

My addiction was becoming dangerous. I had a dream life, and yet I was jeopardizing all my happiness with the thrill and pain of gambling. My betting was accelerating, and it was getting harder to hide my addiction from anyone who loved me. But like any compulsive gambler, I just let it ride. The only thing that could stop me now was some unforeseen tragedy beyond my control. I knew that day would come. And I knew it would be all my fault and cost me everything. But first, things would have to get much, much worse.

The Hangover, starring Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifianakis, was released in June 2009, becoming the hit of the summer, earning almost half a billion dollars around the world, and becoming the highest-grossing R-rated comedy ever in the United States.

On the morning of Thursday, December 10, I was sent to Las Vegas to interview some of the movie’s actors (like Heather Graham and Rob Riggle) at the DVD launch party ahead of its December 15 release. My girlfriend (and now wife) Angie came along to help send the footage back to the station so we could air my interviews on the Friday show.

With the party inside the Pure Nightclub, part of me was excited to be back at Caesars Palace. The other part of me was nervous. It had been nine months since I borrowed $10,000 (US) from the Caesars Palace casino to raise money for my Liberty Village condo. Was this going to be an issue? Would I need to bring along extra money just in case? Nah.

It also wasn’t lost on me that I was interviewing actors from The Hangover. My own Vegas heist might have paled in comparison to their big-screen shenanigans, but of all the movies to link to my........

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