Resorts security guard Bert Grinley spoke to the man as he sat on the ledge, but could not persuade him to move to safety, Tullio said. A casino nurse treated the shaken guard, and casino officials would not allow reporters to speak to him. Witnesses said people had been walking on the sidewalk moments before the fatal plunge. The man's right loafer lay about 20 feet away from the body. Those big ones will kill you.
Some experts blame casino gambling for rising suicide rates.
In 1997, David Phillips, a sociology professor at the University of California-San Diego, released a report linking gambling to suicide. The pro-casino American Gaming Association responded with its own study criticizing the report. Edward Looney, executive director of the New Jersey Council on Compulsive Gambling, said Wednesday that problem gamblers sometimes see suicide as the only escape. One is illegal activity, or stealing to get money or writing bad checks. Once they go through that money and can't gamble anymore, suicide becomes an alternative.