Vegas Mysteries Debunked: Thieves Targeted a Potato Chip Truck Believing It Was Laden with Casino Cash
"Editor's Note: Our weekly series 'Vegas Myths Busted' drops new stories every Monday. This piece initially published on December 9th, 2022.
Mark Twain is renowned for his wise words. One of his famous quotes is, "Never let the truth get in the way of a good story."
There's a popular Vegas myth surrounding a 1992 incident where dim-witted thieves attempted to rob a Vegas Chips truck, believing it carried casino chips. Equipped with knives, they forced driver Rodney Dwayne Bont into the vehicle. Having driven to a secluded spot, the bandits directed Bont to open the back of the truck, revealing several boxes. As instructed by one of the robbers, Bont obliged. However, they emptied the truck of the potato chips loaded inside. Not finding any luck, they then roughly handled Bont and stole whatever money they could find from him - a measly $680.
This sensational news spread like wildfire, prompting the Las Vegas Police Department and Vegas Chips to issue public appeals for help in tracking down the assailants. Vegas Chips even used the incident for advertising, with a TV commercial insinuating that this hypothetical crime would only delay their services to stores and contending that their new slogan was 'You gotta hold 'em, not hold 'em up.'
The case was solved by the authorities just a week later. It emerged that Bont, a convicted former felon, staged the robbery to help him settle his gambling debts. Despite the possibility of five years in prison, he managed to reduce his sentence to two years by framing a charge of attempted embezzlement. Bont served only one year according to records from the Nevada State Prison.
Lt. Carl Fruge of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department spoke to the Los Angeles Times, saying, "We're just glad that it was not true, that we didn't have people out there this stupid."
Yet, the actual truth of the story garnered less attention than the fabricated version. To this day, you can still find it being regurgitated on the internet. Even after the hoax was discredited, Vegas Chips continued to use the truth in their advertisement.
Former Vegas Chips president, Kevin Holden, said in a recent interview, "We still ran with the campaign. In fact, after it became a hoax, the story grew even larger. It had a neat little twist to it... And because of that, we entered into all the Smith grocery stores in Nevada and all the way up to Utah and we managed to enter all the Vons supermarkets in California."
The original Vegas Chips went bust in the '90s. It was revived by another firm a decade later but has also ceased to exist.
Funnily enough, Twain never said, 'Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.' Instead, he stated, 'Get your facts first, and then you can distort them as much as you please,' as documented in Rudyard Kipling's 1899 collection of notes, letters, and essays called 'From Sea to Sea.'"
Remember, 'Vegas Myths Busted' is our weekly series where you'll find more busted Vegas myths, every Monday!"
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Source: www.casino.org
