VEGAS MYTHS BUSTED: The Billionaire, the Condom & the Schmucks Who Believe It

Hot tip: If you Google a story because you suspect it might be false, and the resulting links lead you only to personal WordPress blogs, random social accounts and “news outlets” with WTF names, then you already have your answer.

And yet, here we go again. This winter, an old myth about a Las Vegas cleaning woman who impregnated herself into a multimillion-dollar paternity payday came roaring back, triggering another round of breathless reposts from people who regard “this feels true” as meticulous fact-checking.

But we feel you. Typing a whole question with your thumbs is a ton of work compared to just smashing “repost” and watching the “OMG no way” comments pile up.

Especially while you’re driving.

Rubber Stamped Lie

We traced the source of the myth back to this December 2019 article on something called ihlayanews.com. That’s an African news satire site that disguises itself as legit except for its slogan — though you would need to know that “nuusparodie waarvan jy hou” means “news parody that you like” in Afrikaans.

According to its article, the 40-year-old  hotel cleaner found a used condom in the trash of a well-capitalized 24-year-old tech founder’s room, transforming its contents into a startup human and a $2 million child support award.

“At the time I wanted a baby so bad, and I thought it would be better if I had a baby with a rich man,” the woman, identified as “Jane,” is quoted as saying during her child support trial.

Because an upscale hotel room alone wouldn’t necessarily have communicated to Jane just how rich its occupant was, the story added the detail that the victim “left his bank statement on the nightstand.”

Because nothing screams “I’m Mark Zuckerberg rich” like carrying around a printed bank statement. That you are careless enough to leave out for the cleaning staff to find.

Also, who has even seen a printed bank statement since the Clinton administration?

To be fair, we’re leaving out a detail: the latest round of schmucks wouldn’t have seen red flags. And that’s because what they reposted wasn’t a link to the original article — or to any article.

It was just a screen shot of a capsule summary!

People, if an article link isn’t attached to a supposed news story, your name shouldn’t be, either. This isn’t rocket science.

Maybe the real myth we’re busting here isn’t the condom story but the belief that anyone cares about the truth online anymore.

Look for “Vegas Myths Busted” every Monday on Casino.org. Visit VegasMythsBusted.com to read previously busted Vegas myths. Got a suggestion for a Vegas myth that needs busting? Email corey@casino.org.