At a private baccarat table near the back of the El Cortez Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas on a chilly January afternoon, a crowd of fans gathered to watch one of the world’s most famous gamblers at work. Some had come all the way here just to watch him play. They savored every detail—how he cut chips, ruffled his cash, bantered with the dealer. He was dressed for the job. His gray hair was molded into a tight crew cut, and he wore a knitted gold necklace low across his collarbone and a Super Bowl–sized ring with a Ruby 777 jackpot dangling from his hand.
The scene was impressive, except in one way: This man absolutely sucked at gambling. I’d been with Vegas Matt—the YouTube tycoon whose millions of followers salivate over his every bet—for only a few hours. He’d already lost close to $30,000. His four-figure slot machine deposits had gone bust, an unyielding blackjack jet had hoovered up his teetering stacks of chips, and his rare victories had been reinvested into more audacious, ill-fated propositions. There was no way he’d end the night with dignity, yet here he was, perched at the baccarat table, trying to get even.
Usually, the dealer wordlessly organized Matt’s money into thick columns of $100 bills, pleating their edges at a slight diagonal so she could slash through them all at once with counterfeit-detecting iodine ink. But Vegas Matt was making this bet with a ticket he had just extracted from a slot machine. It was worth $6,627. Baccarat is as close as a gambler can get to flipping a coin: Two pairs of cards are dealt, players add up the numbers printed on them, and the combination that comes closest to nine is declared the winner. The dealer revealed an eight. Vegas Matt turned over a zero.
“Oh my God!” he cried, slinging the cards across the felt while his 30-year-old son, EJ, filmed the disaster on his iPhone. “We cannot win a hand!”
That, of course, is his schtick. Vegas Matt’s legion of fans follow him for exactly one reason, and that’s to watch him lose—and, on seldom occasions, win—unconscionable amounts of money. That $30,000 wasn’t even close to the worst drubbing he’s taken: In 2023 he and a few friends lost $147,000 on a high-stakes slot machine in about three hours. (The description on the video read, “Nobody should gamble like this, my friends got a little carried away.”) A year later, he managed to blow through about $43,000 in a single afternoon. All told, in 2024 he reportedly suffered $404,000 in gambling losses. Yet, somehow, he has managed to turn losing money into an enviable living—and is one of the only people on Earth to do so.
“People give estimates of what they think we’re making, and it’s always way low,” he told me from the plush interior of his Rolls-Royce, which was still scented with a synthetic new-purchase aroma. “Our watch hours on YouTube [in December] were, like, 5.7 million hours. And there’s a commercial every 10 minutes.”
Vegas Matt was on the cusp of a remarkable achievement. In a matter of weeks, his YouTube channel would cross the million-subscriber mark—a metric that pairs nicely with the million or so people who follow his Instagram account, and the 685,000 on his TikTok. New videos appear daily, and they all follow the same format: First, Vegas Matt counts out a hefty wager in front of a blackjack table or a slot machine. Then, like so many gamblers, he simply tries his luck. The camera is framed to provide the illusion that the viewer is in the captain’s chair, preparing to immolate $3,000 on the altar of chance. Throughout all this, Vegas Matt displays no elite strategy, acumen, or gamesmanship. He does not claim to have an insider’s edge or an esoteric jackpot-juicing technique. No one watching his videos is going to pick up tips to improve their approach. But that’s the magic: He’s utterly relatable. One of the enduring axioms of the gambling world is that despite anyone’s best efforts, the house always wins. So, in the language of casinos, to be relatable is to eat shit, constantly, and nevertheless crawl back for more. For amateur gamblers like me, these videos are the closest we can get to the intoxicating precarity of a big bet without risking a dent to the checking account.
This is the fantasy that Vegas Matt is selling: an everlasting bro paradise, sweatless and free, where the bankroll never runs dry and the weekend stretches out into eternity. “It’s like watching a reality show,” he said of his channel’s appeal. “What would happen if you were in Vegas, every day, and gambled? Because that’s what we do every day.”
I am not the only person in my circle to be seduced by this. Mixed in among his army of followers are an old college buddy, a member of my boys-only group chat, and a fellow thirtysomething colleague who was absolutely enthralled after he learned that I was profiling Vegas Matt. (“I love his videos when he’s losing at blackjack,” he said. “Man, awesome.”) When Vegas Matt posted an Instagram clip from the El Cortez in which I could briefly be seen in the background, my brother-in-law instantly shot me a text.
“You doing a piece on Matt?” he wrote. “I’ve got a lot of questions about that guy.”
I did as well. While I’ve thought of him mostly as a gambling cryptid—Bigfoot if he were in way too deep at the roulette wheel—I was also mystified by his persona. His fans are too. Who even is this guy? Where did he come from? How can he stand to lose so much money? But most of all, I wanted to know if his life was as enticing as it looked on camera. When it comes to that, in Vegas, I learned to be careful what I wish for.
It was always possible to become a celebrity by gambling, but, historically speaking, the luminaries of this world were expected to win. This was especially true in the early 2000s, during the so-called poker boom. Around that time, a renewed interest in the game minted a fresh generation of stars, like Daniel Negreanu, Phil Hellmuth, and Phil Ivey, who had clairvoyant talents on the felt. Negreanu in particular was known for his uniquely telegenic flair—he often announced the exact makeup of the face-down cards in front of the other players, thrilling audiences, bamboozling rivals, and propelling him to $55 million in career live earnings.
The poker boom came to an end in 2011, when the Justice Department seized the domains of online gambling sites. (The poker community refers to the day of the raid as “Black Friday.”) In one fell swoop, gambling was dramatically curtailed in America. But seven years later, in 2018, the industry made an unexpected comeback when the Supreme Court overturned the long-standing Professional and Amateur Sports Protection Act and liberalized lawful online sports betting in the United States. The practice—once cordoned off to the scant few alcoves on the map where gambling was already legal—is now established in 39 states and counting. Our citizens are hooked: Americans are estimated to have wagered $150 billion on sports in 2024, a seismic increase from the $7 billion risked during the first year of legalization. Real estate moguls, too, are breaking ground on casinos in formerly verboten territories. Officials in New York City are currently mulling 11 proposals from betting companies, including Caesars Palace, which is eyeing an eight-story game room in the heart of Times Square.
Naturally, I have watched this disruptive gambling renaissance meld with my social rhythms in real time, as more and more friends embrace the titillation of risk. The Negreanu facade has crumbled. The face of the hobby is no longer a gang of sharks outfoxing one another around the poker table. Now it’s idiots like me, whipping out their phone on a Thursday night, destined to endanger another $20 on a doomed three-leg parlay. My Instagram algorithm is littered, alongside Vegas Matt, with deep-fried, postironic gambling memes, all of which seem to simultaneously celebrate and parody the impotence of this enterprise. One of my favorites features a dejected man with a pickax, millimeters from breaking into a hoard of diamonds. The caption reads: “99% of gambling addicts quit right before their big win … never give up.” Perhaps it makes sense, then, that Vegas Matt has become our avatar.
Like many fools my age, I first discovered Vegas Matt—real name: Matt Morrow—when he appeared on my Instagram during a listless weekday morning while I was trying to stave off a variety of financial anxieties: credit card debt, wedding deposits, a lease-renewal negotiation that was sure to get ugly. Those obligations were briefly alleviated when Matt, looking ridiculously tan, with a wide-eyed, overcaffeinated stare, appeared on my phone and, in about 15 seconds, lost more than what I make in a month. (It was on yet another hand of baccarat.) I was entranced: With the flick of my thumb, I saw him replicate the routine again and again, across hundreds of videos, sloughing off whole down payments—whole net worths—into the maw of the casino. It was obscene, and also, perversely enviable.
Vegas Matt’s professional gambling career, if you can call it that, began in 2021, when he was 58 and working in real estate. One night, at a video poker table, he needed a miracle to rebound from a $9,000 deficit. He was dealt the ace and queen of hearts and went looking for the other pieces to complete a royal flush. The machine took mercy on him with a jack, king, and 10—all hearts. Morrow was ecstatic. He whipped out his phone and filmed the $12,060 jackpot, beaming with pride. When his son EJ reviewed the clip later that evening, he wondered if it could go viral. They came up with the name Vegas Matt and posted the video to TikTok, where it garnered a modest but promising 40,000 views. The following day, EJ and Matt returned to the scene of the crime to try and film a second royal flush. This time, they bricked out with an ace high. “Absolute shit sandwich,” said Matt in that clip, examining the wreckage of his wager. Tellingly, the video did better, notching 112,000 views. (One of the video’s first comments reads, “You are going to be broke.”)
Morrow kept at it. He uploaded video after video of his trips to the casino, fleshing out the character his fans know today. The Vegas Matt persona is a stubborn gambler who cherishes his wins and mourns his losses without ever growing outright despondent. He avoids the tactics of other gambling influencers, who seem to mostly post their massive jackpots. And despite his loss-heavy record, you never quite feel as if you’re watching an addict burn it all down, because it’s clear this enterprise is at least somewhat moneymaking. Morrow didn’t tell me exactly how much money he’s generating from his social media enterprise, but EJ has suggested that 70 percent of their net revenue comes from YouTube advertisements, while the other 30 percent is divided between sponsorships and Vegas Matt’s own merchandise store. (He sells, among other things, a $55 pink hoodie featuring one cursive word: Gamble.)
So the digital engagement has allowed him to scrub away the incredible risk of a night at the casino, but fundamentally, Vegas Matt can keep the engine churning only if he is making bets. And sometimes the losses do get to him. Morrow told me that he finished 2024 on a nasty losing streak that forced him to take some money that wasn’t reserved for gambling out of his bank account so he could keep making videos. “I was like, I’m sick of this,” he said; he briefly considered paring down his filming schedule from seven to five days a week to stay solvent. But for as much as Vegas Matt does take a beating, he is always safeguarded by a tide of YouTube residuals, which is not something I can assert for anyone else in the process of losing $30,000 at the El Cortez. The man is unshackled by the burden of temperance. He has jury-rigged his arcane revenue streams in such a way that he can continue to do something he truly loves, at an incredible velocity, without ever being humbled. It all makes Morrow vaguely intangible: an immaterial man in a very material world.
If you’re not among his intended audience, just know that Vegas Matt is famous—much more famous than even I knew. He is famous enough to provoke titters of glee and bewildered, saucer-eyed stares in town. Walk alongside him, and aloof Las Vegas cracks open, revealing a warm and accommodating interior. He can go anywhere, and do anything, with intoxicating panache. No matter where we go, Morrow is recognized by valets, dealers, pit bosses, and, of course, the thousands of tourists ambling around southern Nevada.
In the palatial Crockfords casino, a pair of Argentinians gesture toward him, pushing against the limits of language to muster a halting “I watch your videos.” A roving band of bros beckon him to their table, hoping for a selfie and a single hand of blackjack. An eager clerk, working the front desk, asks for advice about increasing viewership on his own F1-themed YouTube channel, before passing along a key card to a 63rd-floor suite. But by far, the place Vegas Matt is most famous is the El Cortez, where he films the bulk of his videos and, therefore, where people know they have the best chance of running into him. On the day of my visit, Morrow entered the game room with a Starbucks coffee in hand. Seconds later, he was swarmed.
“I knew we were going to get lucky!” shouted a fan who had joined this impromptu meet and greet. Vegas Matt is generous, flashing a big smile for everyone in line—after all, it’s really his fans who pay his bills. They all get a sticker as a souvenir. One sticker takes the shape of a blackjack table. Around its perimeter are the words Get Even, or Get Even Worse.
Many of these people came here just to watch Vegas Matt make some bets. For the next four hours, they tail him back and forth across the corridors of the El Cortez, forming jittery semicircles around his seat in the same way one might jostle for a glimpse of Tiger Woods teeing off at Augusta. They wince at his defeats and toast his victories, and all are fluent in the jargon Morrow deploys on his YouTube channel. (Innage refers to how much money one has inserted into a slot machine. Sando is slang for a wager that bricks out in spectacular fashion.) Joe Schachinger and Kathy Wiese, a couple on vacation from Wisconsin, told me that Vegas Matt’s videos have become their go-to after-dinner entertainment, supplanting Jeopardy!, Netflix, and the evening news.
“We’ll sit there and watch him for an hour,” said Schachinger, who owns an IT company and plays slots at $30 a spin.
“If he wins, we’ll go to the casino,” Wiese said.
“We live and die with him.”
Lurking nearby was Adam Wiesberg, the general manager of the El Cortez, who never lets Vegas Matt out of his sight. He is tasked with giving Morrow and his friends the high-roller treatment. Wiesberg will adjust the music to Vegas Matt’s liking, enforce a tight perimeter around the camera, and, after Morrow has finished his long shift of losing bets, escort him and his posse toward a plush leather booth at the rear of the casino’s marquee restaurant for a complimentary dinner of New York strips and stone crab claws. The one thing Wiesberg doesn’t do, he promised me, is stake Vegas Matt with free chips. Any money the man bleeds comes from his own bank account.
Vegas Matt films at the El Cortez because, since 2017, it’s been one of the few casinos in the city that allow patrons to shoot video of their table games. That was a bold decision, especially in such an infamously paranoid business. If players could record the intricacies of casino procedure, would they then be able to scratch out an advantage? Would the house begin to lose? So, early on in the experiment, Wiesberg’s peers in the industry thought he was out of his mind. “We did the first blackjack stream, and my phone was blowing up,” he said. “People were calling me, saying, ‘Hey, there’s someone recording your table!’ ”
But Wiesberg is a believer in the power of social media, and more than that, he thinks this association with Vegas Matt has clearly paid off. Looking around, I could understand why. The El Cortez was packed on this languid Friday afternoon, and there was no question that Vegas Matt was the main attraction. Wiesberg has leaned into the partnership to the point that the casino’s gift shop is brimming with Vegas Matt–branded shirts and sweaters. “People come in here to buy my merchandise, and then they lose $5,000,” quipped Morrow, unshy about the revenue he generates for the game room.
Morrow would like to replicate this business model across Las Vegas. He hopes that one of those gleaming casinos on the Strip—away from the low-slung ceilings of the El Cortez—will offer him an exclusive deal. He would gamble there, and in return, he’d swarm the floor with a convoy of his fans.
“I could have this place as busy as the El Cortez, but the geniuses who run these companies don’t get it yet,” Morrow said, from the middle of the alabaster Crockfords game room. “This place will pay Carrie Underwood $2 million a weekend to get 2,300 people into that theater. If I did a meet and greet and they promoted it, I could get 2,300 people there, but instead of a bunch of screaming girls, they’d be gamblers. They should be paying me $2 million.”
It’s hard to say he’s wrong. Vegas Matt has correctly identified a sea change in the gambling industry. The hobby’s inherent vice has become a feature rather than a bug. It’s never been easier to lose a bet in the United States, and with that, the glittery lures casinos used to rely on to get people inside the building—the Carrie Underwood concerts Morrow is referencing, spectacles that have historically been positioned to conceal the sin of Sin City—aren’t as necessary as they once were. That was another hurdle Wiesberg needed to navigate: Was he OK with someone showcasing the brutality of the El Cortez’s baccarat tables? He told me that other properties around Las Vegas, ones that have historically obfuscated the misery of this business, are not.
“They’ve been projecting an image to the world forever of excitement and celebration,” he said. “And then he loses, like, $15,000 and walks out.”
Wiesberg has put faith in the idea that people like me have become immune to the traditional ways the gambling industry has marketed itself. Gone are the phony assurances of million-dollar payouts. No, maybe the only way I want to gamble—hell, the only way I know how to gamble—is just like Vegas Matt.
Halfway through my day with Morrow, it became clear that he intended to impress me. He unveiled, one by one, all the blessings that were available to him after conquering Las Vegas—as if to emphasize, in no uncertain terms, that none of this was an act. Yes, Vegas Matt really does live like this, and the rest of us are right to be envious. In practice, that meant that I too was wreathed with VIP treatment for as long as I stood beside him. The reason I was in that Rolls-Royce in the first place was so Vegas Matt could show me that 63rd-floor suite near the vertigo-inducing apex of the Crockfords resort. We zoomed into the sky on the express elevator and gazed through floor-to-ceiling windows at the shimmering rooftops of hotels far less regal than ours.
And yet, after several hours together, I’m still unable to pierce Vegas Matt’s gaudy persona. None of my questions connect: Morrow isn’t much of a sports fan, even though he wagered $12,500 on the Chiefs to win Super Bowl 59 (another loss). We don’t talk much about music, television, or politics, and the only pop-culture artifact he mentions to me throughout the day is the film Coming to America, which he describes as the “best movie ever.” In fact, the only time Vegas Matt truly opens up to me is when we talk about wealth—the way he pursued it and the luxurious perks it entails.
Morrow was raised in the Bay Area and has had a few past lives: He quit a college internship in Hawaii to spend his days at the beach while driving a pedicab. He lived in Los Angeles, where he unsuccessfully tried his hand at stand-up comedy and ended up helping finance a couple of kitschy horror movies in the late 1980s, including the infamous Night of the Demons.
Morrow eventually found his calling in multilevel marketing (or, as he calls it, “network marketing”). He claims to have earned “millions” this way, a feat that would make him the exception to the 99 percent who fail to break even after getting wrapped up in the industry. He got his start in 1989 with a company called FundAmerica, which offered members rebates on airline tickets and long-distance telephone calls. (Its founder was arrested in 1990, and FundAmerica filed for bankruptcy months later.) Morrow told me he then became a top earner at Vemma, a dietary supplement company that was shut down in 2015 following a lawsuit from the Federal Trade Commission. (The agency alleged that, among other things, Vemma systematically preyed upon college students.)
Before I could even mount a follow-up question to Morrow about this, he instinctively launched into his defense. It’s as simple as this: MLMs get a bad rap because the wrong people are involved in them. His good name has been tarnished by too many creeps and weirdos. Their failures aren’t just that they can’t motivate others to sign up to sell weight-loss products, Morrow said. The problem is much bigger than that—they don’t have any friends in the first place.
“So many people fail, and they don’t want to take responsibility for their failure. They blame the industry. They say, ‘Oh it’s a scam,’ ” he said. For the first time in our entire day together, there is a flash of venom. “But the reality is, nobody likes you, and you failed because you couldn’t get anyone to join.”
To become a gambling influencer, one must already be pretty rich, and that tracks with the single ambition Vegas Matt seems to have. Over and over again, he told me that the only thing he’s ever wanted to do with his life is have fun. So it was a little surprising that he’d adopted such a defensive posture about the method he used to get here. Scroll through the recesses of YouTube, and you’ll see Morrow offering the exact same apologia for the tough-minded virtues of multilevel marketing to the very people he was trying to recruit: In one memorable clip, Vegas Matt lounges in a colossal living room and makes the case that anyone can live like this, so long as they aren’t a loser. “We’re looking for cool people,” he said, advocating for Vemma. “If you’re some unemployed, broke, annoying person, no one is going to listen to you.”
It’s a sentiment that clarifies the twinge of humiliation I felt after watching him cut out a baccarat bet of roughly the same value as my 401(k). Am I a loser? Are you? Are we, the unwashed masses, simply unlikable—and is that where it all went wrong? Clearly, Vegas Matt is a master at stoking a poisonous sense of inadequacy.
That’s when one of the great ironies of Morrow’s existence comes into focus. I was attracted to his videos for their effervescent bachelor-party texture, a vision of a life unencumbered by anything but gratification. But the more I was around Morrow, the more I detected an elemental craving just below those gold chains. Toward the end of our time, Morrow told me about the future he envisions for the Vegas Matt brand: He’d like to be flown from casino to casino in a private jet so he may make bets in their businesses as a featured VIP. The fantasy is so ridiculous I can hardly wrap my mind around it: Imagine exploring the country exclusively through the prism of smoke-filled game rooms. The world has rewarded Vegas Matt with incredible spoils, but like so many hustlers before him, he can’t quite stop himself from wanting more.
I suppose that is one of the few things Vegas Matt and I have in common. Because I too have sat at a blackjack table deep into the witching hour, and even on my best nights, I don’t think I’ve ever wandered to the payout window feeling totally satiated. Yes, Vegas Matt has managed to nullify the perils of gambling, but he has done so by leveraging social media—yet another casino, replete with long odds and enthralling opportunity—where the numbers can always get bigger. The horrible truth is that the iridescent desert sun can be refracting through the tinted windows of your blacked-out Rolls-Royce, and still the only thing on your mind is the next bet.
And why is the grind worth it? Easy. It has made Vegas Matt a celebrity, which, as I learned, is much more of a thrill for him than the money is. In a rare moment of vulnerability, Morrow told me he was bullied as a kid and felt like an outcast growing up. “Even at 61 years old, it’s a rewarding experience when people from your past, going back decades, reach out. Everyone wants a piece of you,” he said. “This is cliché, but for someone who had a hard time getting a date to the prom, or who wasn’t picked to be on the basketball team at recess, it’s fun to be like, Hey, maybe I am doing all right.”
Howie Mandel was due onstage in five minutes, but before that, he wanted to take a photo with Vegas Matt. The pair initially connected last summer, when Mandel hosted him on his podcast and probed Morrow about his financial solvency. (“Are you up or down?” asked an inquisitive Mandel at the beginning of the episode.) Morrow, along with the rest of his group, is a special guest of Mandel tonight. We’ve been escorted behind the curtains of the David Copperfield Theater—located in the bowels of the MGM—for a quick flutter of Instagrams. Afterward, Mandel outlines the plan ahead.
“Let’s shoot some content tomorrow,” he said to Morrow.
Moments later, we were sitting in a swank booth in the second row of the auditorium while a trickle of gray-haired snowbirds fill in the cheap seats. I was reminded again of just how easy life in Las Vegas appears to be for Morrow, how this citadel of scams seems to loosen at his touch. I remembered that in a matter of hours, I would no longer be in his orbit. The old world was calling, the one I shared with the other 40 million tourists who come to Las Vegas every year, composed of $10 baccarat bets and gouging ATM premiums.
We said our goodbyes after the show, and Vegas Matt left me standing in the wide-open chambers of the MGM Grand. My eight hours as a high roller were officially over. Now it was time to become reacquainted with the city as I’ve always understood it.
The next day, after a couple of way-too-strong gin and sodas, I withdrew the $100 I had, at the beginning of the trip, made peace with losing. The blackjack table treated me well. I was actually on a bit of a hot streak by the time I hit the poker table, where a quintet of players much richer than I bled me dry in record time. Afterward, I found myself in a very familiar place: bereft and alone in a buzzing casino, more drunk than I had planned on being, talking myself out of the wish to get even, or get even worse.
I held firm and rode the elevator back to my room. I drifted off to sleep while taking solace in the idea that for as glitzy as the Vegas Matt reverie might be, my mundane reality had its own virtue. The thrill of risking money that I can never recover, with YouTube metrics or otherwise, is one of my most cherished sins. And when I do lose, there isn’t a private dinner of stone crab claws waiting to balm my sorrows. I might be playing at much smaller stakes—I’ve never come close to losing $30,000 in a day—but of the two of us, it’s me who really has something to lose. Vegas Matt will never understand the rawness of my vice.
In turn, maybe I will never understand the drudgery of his craft. A great Vegas trip, for my money, consists of a sudden and violent psychological displacement. All of my frugalities are thrown out the window, bad ideas become good ideas, until, before long, I’m buying a pack of Marlboro Reds at 4 in the morning. Those doses of depravity—meted out in 36-hour intervals—are the spice of life. Vegas Matt, on the other hand, is unable to take a break from reality with the intoxicating assistance of excess. He has mixed business with pleasure, and naturally, business is winning out. There are plenty of things I will always envy about Morrow, but I’m glad that the sacred, brain-healing ritual of a Saturday night at the casino with the boys will never become routine, or even boring. I don’t think I would have understood this if I hadn’t come to see him.
Two weeks after I left Las Vegas, Vegas Matt crossed the million-subscriber threshold. He celebrated the only way he knows how: risking a million bucks in a single day, and broadcasting the carnage on YouTube. Morrow supplied half of the sum himself with a gratuitous pile of cash secured with rubber bands. The other half was cheerfully loaned out by the casino.
It was business as usual for Vegas Matt. A blackjack dealer ripped away his $10,000 wagers, piece by piece. A slot machine repossesses a $20,000 investment in record time. But near the conclusion of the video, Morrow made the single biggest bet he’s ever recorded on camera: $100,000, on one hand of baccarat. This time, though, Vegas Matt was the one to turn over an eight.
“I think I’m going to pass out!” he shouted, dizzy with glee. “Thank you, dealer!”
All told, Morrow logged a small victory. He was up about $76,000. It could have gone so much worse. At the end of the night, Morrow decompressed in the casino lounge, toasting both his winnings and the viewers who’ve come along for the ride. He’d switched outfits. Morrow was wearing the newest item available in the Vegas Matt merch store. It’s a T-shirt emblazoned with a jackpot counter. The white-and-gold letters across his chest spell out four words: One in a Million.
