The Motive for the 2017 Las Vegas Shooting

The missing elements in the FBI's report identifying the lack of a clear motive for the deadliest shooting in the United States

Image credit: Jennifer Morrow from San Francisco, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

It is a common human inclination after tragic events for the public to seek motivation for the perpetrator’s actions. The Las Vegas shooting that occurred on October 1, 2017 resulted in the deaths of 58 (later raised to 60) people and injured hundreds. Ever since the horrific event, the public has been understandably interested in learning the motive for the deadliest massacre in U.S. history from a lone gunman. When the FBI concluded its investigation and issued a brief summary of its findings in 2019, rather than being presented with definitive answers, the public was treated to headlines such as:

• FBI Finds No Motive In Las Vegas Shooting, Closes Investigation (NPR)

• FBI finds no specific motive in Vegas attack that killed 58 (AP News)

And from a more recent article in 2021:

• When the Gunman’s Motive Remains a Mystery: Does It Matter? (The New York Times)

Rather than constituting a full report, the Key Findings of the Behavioral Analysis Unit’s Las Vegas Review Panel (LVRP), published by the FBI in early 2019 is a surprisingly short three pages that is light on details. The key sentence from the report that media seized upon was the following: “The LVRP concludes that there was no single or clear motivating factor behind Paddock’s attack.” There is also this interesting section that seeks to absolve Las Vegas institutions from having provided any motivation for the attack: “Exhaustive investigations by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) and the FBI yielded no indication that Paddock’s attack was motivated by a grievance against any specific casino, hotel, or institution in Las Vegas; the Mandalay Bay Resort and Casino; the Route 91 Harvest Festival; or against anyone killed or injured during the attack.” What makes this sentence strange is that a year and half later details would come to light from one of the very sources interviewed by the LVMPD (the shooter’s brother, no less) that casts doubt on the veracity of this finding.

Even with the scant detail presented in this report, the summary provides some clues as to what the motivation of Stephen Paddock could have involved. “The LVRP assesses that Paddock experienced an objective (and subjective) decline in physical and mental health, level of functioning, and financial status over the last several years of his life.” The earlier LVMPD Criminal Investigative Report from 2018 further expands on these points and provides important context. Paddock’s girlfriend, Marilou Danley, recounts his physical and emotional decline: “Paddock was no longer able to have an intimate relationship because he was unable to perform. Danley told investigators Paddock was physiologically able to have sex, but the physical act would exhaust him. Danley stated he would often sleep for long periods after physical exertion...Paddock would often complain of being sick and told Danley that doctors couldn’t cure him. He stated doctors told him he had a chemical imbalance.” Paddock’s finances deserves particular attention, but is glossed over in the FBI summary. It helps to explain potentially part of the motivation for the crime, but also why he spent so much time in Las Vegas to begin with. Becoming wealthy at an early age and retiring from the accounting-type jobs he previously held meant that Paddock had a lot of time on his hands. He seemed to focus on an entertainment-only lifestyle which Reno, and later Las Vegas, gave him. While he reportedly enjoyed his time gambling through the night for years (his game of choice was video poker), he reportedly became disillusioned with the companies that provided him with this entertainment due to their business practices and treatment of him over time. This may have driven, at least in part, the selection of the site of the massacre, the Mandalay Bay Hotel, from which on the 32nd floor he fired over 1,000 bullets aimed at the Route 91 Harvest music festival for 11 minutes, which ultimately resulted in 60 deaths and over 800 injuries.

Paddock originally struck it rich through a real estate business in Los Angeles with his brother Eric that netted him approximately $2 million. Selling an apartment complex in Mesquite, Texas in 2015 also earned him profits in the area of $5-6 million. In the 2020 documentary Money Machine, Eric Paddock lays out his brother’s modus operandi in early retirement which began in Reno, Nevada where he tried to live the high life while attempting to outsmart the casinos. Rather than make extra money from his endeavors, Paddock wanted to break even while enjoying the drinks, restaurants, and other perks that came with the gambling lifestyle: “The goal was to gamble effectively enough to pay for all that stuff so it didn't cost him anything,” Eric said. “At the Atlantis, we took over the whole top floor because he brought my whole extended family there for a week because he had a bazillion points and he knew it was coming to an end there because they had started crunching him down a little bit. And they pushed him out of Reno by just cutting off his comps and stuff.”

Rather than change his approach, Paddock simply transported it to Las Vegas, where he continued his gambling habit and his search for comps, which is short for complimentary or free rewards given to gamblers. According to Money Machine, Paddock was on a winning streak at Mandalay Bay and his luck began to change with the hotel’s sale to MGM Mirage in 2005. According to bellhop Andy Martinez: "He used to win plenty, he did very well gambling. He knew what he was doing. That all ended once MGM bought Mandalay Bay…MGM International tightened up a whole bunch of policies and procedures and they started pinching the high-limit gambler a little more and stopped fulfilling comps.” His brother Eric provided an example of how the hotel/casino would renege on their promises: “They didn't make any money on him. So, what would they do? They would say, ‘Oh, we're sorry, Steve, but there's going to be 3x points tonight from midnight to 6, but you don't get the 3x points.’ And then when they broke the deal he was pissed. The deal’s a deal.” Given that the acquisition occurred 12 years before the crime, it is unclear how quickly this disillusionment unfolded. What is known is that he purchased the vast majority of his 67 firearms (24 of them seized inside of Mandalay Bay) in the year before the attack.

Paddock ran afoul of the old adage “the house always wins.” Martinez described another scheme where high rollers would lose big, be promised large suites as a way to make up for it, only to arrive to find out that all of the rooms were full and that only upgrades were available, at a cost. “They definitely want to hide these tricks they pull on gamblers,” Martinez said. “They are there to make a winner a loser.” Paddock apparently thought his intelligence would win out in the end, securing his gravy train despite the system being rigged against him. This self-confidence is a quality that he and his brother shared, which Eric relayed to police after the crime:

Eric told investigators he and Paddock were smarter than the majority of other people. Eric told investigators he was in Las Vegas to help and show “how dumb you motherfuckers are,” referring to law enforcement…Paddock was described by Eric as a “narcissist” and only cared for people that could benefit him in some way. Eric stated Paddock needed to be seen as important and needed to be catered to.

According to an FBI analysis of his bank accounts, in September 2015 Paddock had a total of $2.1 million, which was reduced to $530,000 in the next two years (most of the decline occurred in 2017). He spent $600,000 at casinos, paid $170,000 to credit card companies, and purchased $90,000 in firearms. Eric claimed his brother gambled a great deal more in his final week: “Steve gambled $1.6 million at the Mandalay in the week before he did this…Violence behind gambling losses is not something that doesn't happen. He was really, really angry with the gaming industry.” This rationale is completely missing from the investigations, other than a brief reference in Eric’s summary of interviews that Paddock was no longer receiving comps from casinos due to his success. Instead of mentioning Paddock gambling large amounts at Mandalay Bay in the week before the shooting, the investigation report refers to Paddock playing “mostly at the Wynn for the last few months.” While the FBI report explicitly downplays this angle to the massacre, the interviewees in Money Machine provide some evidence for the reason that Las Vegas was selected as the site for the shooting.

The best counterargument to Paddock’s frustrations with Las Vegas as the sole motive is the fact that his Internet searches revealed through the investigation showed his research into alternate sites, focusing on large open-air venues. His Google searches from May 18, 2017 included: “biggest open air concert venues in USA,” and “how crowded does Santa Monica Beach get.” On September 5, 2017, his searches included “life is beautiful expected attendance,” “life is beautiful single day tickets,” and “life is beautiful Vegas lineup.” On Bing the same day, they were: “Mandalay Bay Las Vegas,” “Route 91 harvest festival 2017 attendance,” and “Route 91 harvest festival 2017.”

By early September, Paddock showed signs of pre-planning at his selected location. Danley, his girlfriend, caught him engaging in suspicious behavior around this time, according to the police report: “During a stay at the Mandalay Bay in the beginning of September 2017, Danley recalled Paddock behaving strangely. They were staying in Room 60-235, and she observed Paddock constantly looking out the windows of the room which overlooked the Las Vegas Village venue. Paddock would move from window to window looking at the site from different angles.” The FBI report does not mention this, but rather focuses on the other sites that Paddock researched: “Paddock’s exploration of other potential sites suggests that his final selection was based on the identification of a tactically-advantageous location from which to attack.”

The FBI report also speculated that Paddock was in a way following in his father’s footsteps in seeking criminal notoriety:

Paddock’s intention to die by suicide was compounded by his desire to attain a certain degree of infamy via a mass casualty attack…Paddock was influenced by the memory of his father, who was himself a well-known criminal.

Paddock’s father, Benjamin Hoskins Paddock, was a criminal and prison escapee, appearing on the FBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list from 1969 to 1977. His crimes included three bank robberies, ten instances of auto larceny, five convictions for running a “confidence game,” and one count of conspiracy as part of a bad check operation. Absent from the FBI’s report are any details about his father beyond a one-sentence footnote: “Benjamin Paddock (Stephen Paddock’s father) was a bank robber and fugitive, at one point appearing on the FBI’s Top Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list (1968) [sic].” The parallels between Benjamin and Stephen, however, are illuminating and the similarities run deep. This description from a March 1972 Shiner, Texas newspaper could have equally been written about his son: “Paddock has been diagnosed as being psychopathic and egotistical, as well as arrogant, and reportedly has suicidal tendencies.” One of Benjamin’s final acts before his 1960 arrest in Las Vegas was attempting to run over an FBI agent with his car. Similarly, his son’s character was studied by the same city’s police department over five decades later: “Paddock was described by many as a narcissist and only cared about himself. Paddock needed to feel important and only cared how relationships would benefit him…Paddock would not have cared about the people he killed.” Stephen largely grew up without his father at home, as Benjamin’s 1960 arrest occurred when Stephen was seven years old; rather than tell her children the truth, their mother informed them that their father had died. While Benjamin’s suicidal tendencies were overcome (he died of a heart attack in 1998 at age 71), his son Stephen died of an intraoral gunshot wound at age 64 before police arrived at his 32nd floor hotel room. His death on October 1, 2017 was ruled a suicide, one month before his father would have turned 91 had he lived.

While his father’s characteristics serve as a useful backdrop to the Las Vegas shooting, the ultimate, banal motive may in fact be buried in the earlier 2018 LVMPD report:

Eric believed Paddock may have conducted the attack because he had done everything in the world he wanted to do and was bored with everything. If so, Paddock would have planned the attack to kill a large amount of people because he would want to be known as having the largest casualty count. Paddock always wanted to be the best and known to everyone.

In writing of its final report and closing its investigation while largely ignoring the gaming and family context of Paddock’s story, the FBI appeared to downplay certain aspects of his motivations. However, taken in totality, the factors including his psychopathy, a decline in health and wealth, a desire for infamy, and petty gaming industry grievances amount to no measure of comfort for the victims and no measure of sympathy for the perpetrator.