The robbery was remarkably simple in its execution. Just before 4:00 in the morning, a man parked his motorcycle by the entrance to the casino, walked in still wearing his jumpsuit and helmet with the visor down to hide his face, brandished a gun and grabbed casino chips from around the tables. Within minutes he was gone. Unfortunately for him, popularity was about his only gain from the robbery.

On this day, December 9, in 2010, the armed robber at the Bellagio casino made off with $1.5 million in chips.

The simplicity of his operation was its strength and its downfall: had the robber done his homework, he likely would have learned that casino chips are not easily convertible into cash. Every casino uses their own marked chips, and many of them, particularly for the higher denominations are RFID-tagged, the same as a barcode. If he tried to cash the marked chips, he would be arrested on the spot. And that was before the Bellagio executives announced they would be discontinuing the $25,000-value chips, some of which were taken by the robber altogether. His robbery netted him some good souvenirs, perhaps, but nothing of value.