Circus Circus Las Vegas: The Room 123 Ghost Story and the Truth Behind It

Ask a Las Vegas ghost tour guide for the city’s saddest hotel story and there is a good chance you will hear about Room 123 at Circus Circus: a mother who shot her young son and then herself, a child’s voice crying for help, and the words “Help Me” appearing in the steam on bathroom mirrors. It has been retold on haunted travel lists for years, including earlier versions of this guide.

It is also a story that falls apart when you check it. Casino.org’s “Vegas Myths Busted” column found that Circus Circus has never had a Room 123 and that there is no record of such a murder-suicide. This guide tells the legend as it is told, explains what is and is not documented, and covers the real and genuinely colorful history of the resort Hunter S. Thompson made famous.

The ghost stories of Circus Circus

The Room 123 legend

The story goes that a mother checked into Room 123 with her young son, shot him and then turned the gun on herself. Since then, the legend says, guests near the room hear screams and a child crying for help, and the mother and boy are seen walking the nearby hallways together. Haunted Las Vegas round-ups and at least one ghost tour company still tell it this way.

Corey Levitan of Casino.org looked into it in 2023 and found the simplest possible problem: Circus Circus has never had a Room 123. He also found no record of a mother killing her son and herself at the resort, while noting that not every death at a Las Vegas resort reaches the news. His conclusion was that, whatever happened elsewhere, no tragedy ever took place in a Room 123 at Circus Circus.

"Help Me" on the mirror

The most vivid detail of the story is the message. KTNV’s 2016 list of places to see ghosts in Las Vegas said guests and employees have reported loud cries for help, and that the words “Help Me” have appeared on bathroom mirrors, written in the steam after a shower.

Writing on a fogged mirror is one of the oldest motifs in ghost stories, and finger marks left on glass by earlier guests will reappear when the glass steams up. That does not make the experience any less unsettling at 2 a.m., but it is worth knowing before you shower.

The kitchen and the poker room

Older lists, including earlier versions of this guide, added three people said to have been killed in the kitchen, seen by guests and staff, and placed activity around the poker area. We could not find any source for deaths in the kitchen, so we treat that part as legend.

The resort has seen real crime over the years, as any huge hotel does, but none of it matches the stories ghost tours tell, and no ghost story is attached to it.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• "Room 123": The room in the legend. It has never existed, so you cannot stay in it.
• Guest room hallways: Where the mother and son are said to walk and cries for help are heard.
• Bathroom mirrors: Where “Help Me” is said to appear in the steam.
• The poker area: Named on older haunted lists; no specific story is attached.

History of Circus Circus Hotel & Casino

Circus Circus was the idea of Jay Sarno and his partner Stanley Mallin. Sarno wanted a circus like the ones people remembered from childhood. The $15 million casino opened on October 18, 1968, under a giant pink and white big top, with trapeze artists and acrobats performing over the gaming tables. It drew 26,000 people in its first eight hours, and at first it charged $1 admission.

It had no hotel at first and struggled. A Teamsters pension fund loan paid for a 15-story tower with 409 rooms that opened in July 1972, and the resort’s early years came with investigations into organized-crime ties. Hunter S. Thompson’s 1971 book Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas immortalized the casino with the line that it was what the whole hip world would be doing on Saturday night if the Nazis had won the war. The same year, the James Bond film Diamonds Are Forever shot scenes on the casino floor and midway.

In 1974 William Bennett and William Pennington took over and turned Circus Circus into a profitable, slot-driven resort for middle-class visitors and families. They kept building: a second tower in 1975, the Circus Circus Manor motel buildings around 1980, the 29-story Skyrise tower in 1986 and the 35-story West Tower in 1996. The indoor theme park under the pink glass dome opened in 1993 as Grand Slam Canyon and became the Adventuredome in 1997.

Their company, Circus Circus Enterprises, went on to build the castle-themed Excalibur in 1990 and was renamed Mandalay Resort Group in 1999. MGM bought it in 2005, and in 2019 sold Circus Circus to Phil Ruffin for $825 million. Today the resort has about 3,767 rooms, making it one of the biggest hotels in the city.

Tips for a haunted stay

• Treat Room 123 as campfire lore and enjoy the place for what it is: the circus acts, the midway and the Adventuredome.
• Rooms in the low-rise Manor buildings are motel-style; tower rooms have the views. Neither has a better ghost story.
• Fog up your mirror and see what appears. Fingerprints left by past guests are the usual culprit.
• Hear the Room 123 story told properly on a downtown or Strip ghost tour, then decide for yourself. See our guide to haunted places in Las Vegas.
• For a hotel with a better-documented ghost story, the El Cortez downtown dates from 1941.

More haunted hotels nearby

• El Cortez Hotel & Casino: downtown’s 1941 casino and its mob ghosts
• Flamingo Las Vegas: Bugsy Siegel’s resort on the center Strip
• Luxor, Las Vegas: the pyramid and its curse legends on the south Strip
• Westgate Las Vegas: the old Las Vegas Hilton and Elvis’s ghost
• Haunted hotels in Nevada
• Haunted hotels in Las Vegas

Sources

Facts on this page are checked against the hotel’s own website, historic records and news coverage. Ghost stories are reported as guests, staff and local historians tell them. Read how we rate haunted hotels.

• Casino.org: Vegas myths re-busted, what happened in Room 123 at Circus Circus
• KTNV: 13 places you might see ghosts in Las Vegas (2016)
• Amy's Crypt: Haunted places in Las Vegas
• Wikipedia: Circus Circus Las Vegas

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