“Amazing Race” Alums Set Guinness World Record With 24-Hour Casino Marathon

By Scott Roeben, on September 29 2025
5 min read 0 comments
Las Vegas

Two inexhaustible reality TV stars, Garrett Smith and Joel Strasser, have set a new Guinness World Record for “Most Casinos Visited in 24 Hours” right here in Las Vegas.

The pair finished as runners-up on season 35 of “Amazing Race,” but they are now the champions of casino-hopping.

A Guinness World Record adjudicator confirmed Smith and Strasser visited 115 casinos between 3:00 p.m. on Sep. 25 and 3:00 p.m. on Sep. 26, 2025. Honestly, we are winded just typing that sentence.

Left to right: Garrett Smith, Guinness World Record adjudicator Michael Empric and Joel Strasser. Smith and Strasser were as nice in person as on TV, just a lot more tired.

The previous “Most Casinos Visited in 24 Hours” record was set in 2017. That record involved a paltry 74 casinos.

It didn’t appear as though the record would ever be broken due to the fact the previous criteria specified placing bets on live table games. There aren’t 74 casinos in Las Vegas with table games anymore, so Guinness World Records expanded the criteria to embrace the “spirit of the record.”

Guinness World Record adjudicator Michael Empric explained the whole thing better than we can during a media event at Circa, the final stop for Garrett Smith and Joel Strasser in their quest for immortality (or at least until somebody bests their record).

Smith and Strasser are no strangers to world records, as they already hold 20 of them. The “most casinos visited” record is the coolest, though, because it happened in Las Vegas.

That said, “Most Chopsticks in a Beard” is pretty awesome.

Garrett Smith is the one with the mustache, Joel Strasser is the one with the full beard. Full of what is anyone’s guess.

We had no idea these guys were so popular, but at Circa, they were swarmed with enthusiastic groupies. Sorry, fans. Enthusiastic fans.

Add “patient” to the list of qualities possessed by reality TV stars, Garrett Smith and Joel Strasser.

Our very own Casino.org sponsored the world record attempt.

Our colleague Devin O’Connor shared Smith and Strasser got an all-expense-paid trip to Las Vegas and Casino.org also paid the duo $4,000 for their record-breaking adventure, as well as covering all the bets they made during their Las Vegas odyssey.

People who break records aren’t in it for the money, it’s all about bragging rights.

Casino.org has been covering all our bets for years by paying our salary which we then gamble in an ongoing attempt to set a Guinness World Record for “Most Obscenities Shouted at Pinches Video Poker Machines Displaying Four Cards to a Royal,” which should be real record. “Pinches” is Spanish for “less than optimal looseness.”

Setting records is infinitely more fun than having a real job.

Someone who does have a real job is the Guinness World Record adjudicator, Michael Empric. The dapper, no-nonsense Empric was in charge of verifying all the proof required to make the record official.

Smith and Strasser, and their helpers, including friends and another former “Amazing Race” team, provided photos, video, casino chips, vouchers, eyewitness accounts and even signed statements from dealers to show they met all the criteria for the record.

The verification process took hours and we have never been happier to not be involved in something because it sounds like the least enjoyable part of this entire adventure.

Garrett Smith and Joel Strasser and Casino.org rep Riley Clark make sure the endless documentation is ready before the adjuicationing commences. If that is not a word, it needs to be.

Based upon the math, it’s clear Guinness didn’t hold the record-breakers to a strict interpretation of the previous criteria, as there aren’t 115 proper casinos in Las Vegas to visit. There are around 80 venues people think of as casinos on The Strip and downtown. (You can see the licensee totals on the Nevada Gaming Control Board Web site, in .pdf.)

There are, however, more than 115 venues we’ll call “gaming establishments,” otherwise known informally as “slot parlors.” Clark County has about 1,500 such places.

There seems to be confusion around the official rules because they currently say only casinos with table games or electronic table games qualify for this record, not slots. We prefer the broader definition that appears to include taverns and bars with bartop games (most notably chains like Dotty’s and PT’s). The folks at Guinness aren’t casino experts, they’re record experts. A lot of people don’t really get the difference between electronic table games and slots. Most bartop machines have table games (like blackjack) on them. Forest for the trees!

Let’s think of it this way: This wasn’t so much breaking a record as setting a new record with a new and more realistic set of rules.

Guinness could’ve called this “Most Land-Based Gaming Establishments, the Majority of Which Are Old-School Casinos but There May Have Been a Dotty’s in the Mix, Visited in 24 Hours,” but that’s not nearly as snappy as “Most Casinos Visited in 24 Hours.”

It’s satire! If we could not be fired, that’d be great.

The folks at Guinness showed flexibility by broadening the criteria for what qualifies as a casino. Ultimately, world records are supposed to be fun and Guinness made this record fun (and breakable) again.

We haven’t been able to get our hands on the complete list of casinos visited, but we get why that information is being closely guarded. Why would they hand a roadmap to victory (involving a year-and-a-half of planning) to other aspiring record-breakers? Have you ever watched “Amazing Race”? This isn’t socialism, it’s dog-eat-dog. Record-breaking is a bloodsport. It’s the Hunger Games, survival of the fittest, winner takes all.

Colonel Sanders isn’t sharing his secret herbs and spices with Popeyes. That’s because Colonel Sanders is dead, but you get the idea.

The bottom line: Guinness World Records are for entertainment purposes only.

Ultimately, all Guinness World Records are created and adjudicated by Guinness World Records. They set the rules and criteria and determine if the criteria have been satisfied.

Guinness peaked as a shared cultural touchstone in the 1990s, before the Internet democratized (and some would say diluted) world records and generally ruined everything.

There are other keepers of world records, of course, but Guinness World Records is the gold standard.

We personally hold a world record with another company, Record Setters, for “Most Photos Taken With One Million Dollars.” We are not making this up.

Kudos to Garrett Smith and Joel Strasser for their hard-earned new world record.

Smith and Strasser’s Herculean feat involved layers of planning and logistics and chronicling and adjudicationary majesty, which we should mention was the name of our band in high school.

Kevin took songwriting credit and receives all the royalties for our band’s hit, but it was a collaboration. We hope to resolve the rift he caused that led to the end of the group, but the refractory period is taking longer than expected.

Intrepid, self-proclaimed oddballs Smith and Strasser have set a seemingly impossible high bar for casino lovers and record breakers in the future.

Should you take on this record, please remember Las Vegas casinos are much, much farther apart than they appear.

Smith and Strasser traversed more than 130 miles to set this record, from Circa to Railroad Pass and Green Valley Ranch.

Wear comfortable shoes and good luck with that.