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Smile for the Security Cameras Facing Your Las Vegas Strip Balcony

When X user @JoeWarner81 noticed a number of cameras in the corner of a TikTok video that was shot from a balcony at the Cosmopolitan Las Vegas, it went viral this week.  Mounted on a nearby low rooftop, the cameras were aimed in all directions.

“Anyone in #vegas know what this is facing the cosmo?” asked the July 15 post, which has so far generated 300K views. “Be careful what ‘activities’ you do on your balcony at the Cosmopolitan I guess.”

“No more privacy anywhere,” commented @KyleInLas Vegas beneath Las Vegas Locally’s retweet, which received 109K views.

“It’s like a beautiful yet terrifying dystopian flower,” added @ZOMBEATS.

Five of the camera arrays in a Google Earth satellite image of the hotel were recognized by Casino.org.  They are a component of the external surveillance system of the Cosmo.

They were probably put in place to record incidents that would give rise to liability claims for the building with the tallest and most noticeable balcony on the Las Vegas Strip, even though neither MGM Resorts nor the Cosmopolitan's former owner, the Blackstone Group, had disclosed their intentions to the public.

These incidents involve persons jumping or being forced from fires, beer bottles, lighted cigarettes, or other objects falling or being thrown from them, causing injuries on the ground, or (God forbid) another mass shooting.

Although they were speculated in earlier articles, images of the arrays have been shared on social media since at least 2017.

Kids, let's look at you

One of the Yelp reviews on the Cosmopolitan Hotel mentioned being watched (security showing up at the door and accusing underage drinking), while another post bluntly stated: ‘The first question anyone wants to know is, how does Cosmo know what’s going on in our room?’ according to a 2013 Tripadvisor comment.

“Answer — we figured out there are ‘security cameras’ on the outside of the building, looking at private patios & potentially in rooms.”

After having sex on their Cosmopolitan balconies, several respondents claimed that security had visited them.

 A request for an explanation of the purpose of the cameras was not immediately answered by MGM Resorts.  Technically speaking, however, the balconies are a part of the hotel's outside, which is not a location where one may reasonably expect seclusion.

Furthermore, one cannot reasonably anticipate privacy in contemporary Las Vegas.

Red circles indicate the locations of five identical camera arrays trained on the Cosmopolitan’s balconies.