Power cut leaves gamblers betting in black

One of the biggest hotel-casinos on the Las Vegas Strip closed and thousands of guests had to check in somewhere else after a main power line failed.

The 3,000-room Bellagio was hit with the partial blackout at around 2am on Sunday. Emergency power to the casino came on, providing only a glimmer of light throughout the building.

“I guess I’ll have to go to another casino to lose money,” Bob Raf, a teacher from Michigan, told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.

A power line coming into the resort failed, said Alan Feldman, a spokesman for MGM Mirage, which owns the hotel. ”We don’t know what happened and probably won’t for some time,” he said yesterday.

Mr Feldman said thousands of feet of cable would have to be replaced and the hotel would not reopen until this morning at the earliest.

The power failure caused surveillance cameras to shut down, but a priceless collection of Monet paintings on display was safe, Mr Feldman said. There were no reports of any injuries or thefts.

He said 800 guest rooms were occupied on Sunday night and 1,100 arrivals were scheduled for yesterday. Guests were moved to other hotels.