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Everyone knows the Las Vegas of neon and fountains and buffets that never end. But there’s a second city underneath that one, and it only shows itself after the lights go down. I’ve lived here long enough to know that the same properties people flock to for jackpots and headliner shows carry decades of tragedy, and a lot of guests swear those stories didn’t stay in the past.

If you love a good ghost story, or you’re the type who books the room where something happened on purpose, this is your kind of Vegas tour. Here are the haunted places worth knowing about before your next trip, what people claim to experience there, and how to see them for yourself.

The Excalibur Hotel and Casino

The Excalibur has anchored the south end of the Strip since 1990, all turrets and drawbridges and medieval kitsch. It’s one of the most family-friendly resorts in town by day. By night, the stories cluster on a single floor: the 10th.

Guests who’ve stayed up there describe the same handful of things over and over. Sudden cold spots that don’t match the thermostat. The feeling of being followed down an empty hallway. A few have reported the sensation of breath on the back of the neck when no one is behind them. Others talk about electronics behaving strangely, TVs throwing static when they’re switched off, phones ringing with no one on the line, alarm clocks going off that were never set.

Is it real? I’ll let you decide. But if you want to test it yourself, the 10th floor is the one to request. Just know you might not sleep much.

Horseshoe Las Vegas (the former Bally’s, and before that, the MGM Grand)

This one comes with a real and heartbreaking history, and it’s worth getting the name right because it has changed twice. The property opened as the MGM Grand in 1973. On the morning of November 21, 1980, a fire broke out in a first-floor deli, sparked by faulty electrical wiring inside a wall.

It raced through the casino and pushed toxic smoke up through the hotel tower while thousands of guests were still asleep. It remains the deadliest disaster in Nevada history and one of the worst hotel fires the country has ever seen. Reported death tolls range from 85 to 87, with nearly 700 people injured. The tragedy rewrote fire safety codes for high-rise buildings nationwide.

The property was rebuilt and reopened in 1981, sold and rebranded as Bally’s in the mid-1980s, and then rebranded again in December 2022 as Horseshoe Las Vegas, the name it carries today. So if you’ve read older haunted-Vegas lists that still call it Bally’s or the MGM Grand, this is the same building at the corner of Las Vegas Boulevard and Flamingo Road.

Given what happened here, it’s no surprise this is considered one of the most haunted addresses in the city. Guests and staff have reported shadowy figures moving through hallways, apparitions in stairwells, and the faint smell of smoke where there’s no cigarette and no source. Housekeepers have described bed sheets pulled off and crumpled moments after a room was made up.

Some employees say they’ve seen a group of figures walking the halls together. As the stories go, the higher you climb in the tower, the stronger the reports get, which tracks with the fact that upper-floor guests were the least likely to escape the fire.

Whatever you believe, it’s worth remembering that real people died here. I always think that context makes the place more sobering than spooky.

Luxor Hotel and Casino

The Luxor is impossible to miss, a 30-story black glass pyramid with a light beam shooting straight up into the desert sky. It opened in 1993, and almost from the beginning it collected a reputation as one of the most haunted spots on the Strip.

Part of that reputation traces to construction. Reports on the number of workers who died building the pyramid vary widely depending on who’s telling the story, and the exact figures are hard to pin down. Over the years, the property has also seen guest deaths, including falls from the interior balconies onto the atrium below, which is a genuinely unsettling piece of the building’s design when you’re standing at the bottom looking up.

The Luxor is also tied to a crime that made national news. On May 7, 2007, a pipe bomb hidden inside a coffee cup exploded on the rooftop of the Luxor’s parking garage, killing a young employee who had just finished his shift at a food-court hot dog stand. It initially raised fears of a terror attack on the Strip, but investigators determined it was a targeted murder driven by a jealous ex.

Two men were later convicted and sentenced to life without parole. The casino itself was undamaged and never even evacuated, but the event added another dark chapter to the pyramid’s story.

As for the hauntings, guests describe a woman said to wander the upper guest floors, sometimes linked to the deaths that happened here. There are also long-running tales tied to the property’s old Nile River boat ride, which closed decades ago. The “cursed pyramid” mythology, that pyramids were built as tombs, that the shape itself invites something in, is pure folklore, but it’s folklore that’s kept the Luxor near the top of every haunted-Vegas list for thirty years.

The Flamingo and the ghost of Bugsy Siegel

If you want the most classic Vegas ghost story of them all, it’s here. The Flamingo opened in 1946 as the vision of mobster Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel. Less than a year later, in 1947, Siegel was shot to death in Beverly Hills. The original hotel and his private quarters were torn down long ago, but the Flamingo remains the oldest continuously operating resort on the Strip, and by many accounts, Bugsy never checked out.

Employees and guests have reported his apparition for decades, most often near the Presidential Suite and around the memorial garden dedicated to him behind the property, tucked near the pool and wildlife habitat. People describe a figure in a smoking jacket, doors that open and close on their own, and disembodied voices.

It’s the rare ghost story where you can actually go stand at the memorial in daylight, read the plaque, and decide for yourself whether the air feels different there. I think it’s one of the more genuinely interesting historical stops in the city, ghost or no ghost.

Circus Circus

Circus Circus has been drawing families to the north end of the Strip since 1968, with its big top, midway games, and the indoor Adventuredome theme park. But the carnival atmosphere sits on top of a darker reputation.

The best-known story centers on Room 123. As the legend goes, a tragic murder-suicide took place there, and guests and staff have since reported the words “Help Me” appearing on bathroom mirrors, along with screams and cries echoing from empty rooms. Some describe seeing the figure of a young boy wandering the halls. There are separate accounts tied to the casino and kitchen areas as well.

I’d take the specifics with a grain of salt, since these tales have grown in the retelling over the decades, but Circus Circus earns its place on this list purely on how many people report the same experiences.

Westgate Las Vegas and the King himself

Just off the Strip, the Westgate has one of the most famous residents in Vegas ghost lore: Elvis Presley. The property opened as the International Hotel in 1969, and it’s where Elvis launched his legendary Vegas residency that same year, performing there regularly for seven years and cementing his place in the city’s history.

Guests, employees, and even fellow performers have claimed to see the King’s ghost over the years, usually near the theater, the upper-floor hallways, and the areas connected to his old suite and backstage green room. Some say they’ve heard his music playing when nothing was on. It’s a gentler, almost affectionate haunting compared to the others on this list, which feels fitting for Elvis.

Zak Bagans’ The Haunted Museum

If you’d rather seek out the paranormal on purpose than stumble into it at 3 a.m. in a hotel room, this is the place to go. Ghost Adventures host Zak Bagans opened The Haunted Museum in 2018 inside the historic Wengert Mansion, an 11,000-square-foot home built in 1938 in downtown Las Vegas that has its own reputation for dark history. It’s since become one of the city’s most popular attractions and has been named a “best museum” by local press multiple times.

Inside are more than 30 rooms of cursed objects and paranormal artifacts that Bagans has collected over the years, including the actual staircase from Indiana’s so-called “Demon House” and items tied to some genuinely infamous cases. This is not a walk-through-at-your-own-pace situation for everyone: tours are guided, run roughly every 15 minutes, and every visitor signs a waiver before going in because of the disturbing nature of some exhibits.

There’s an age minimum, so this one is for older kids and adults, not little ones. For the truly brave, there’s also an after-hours flashlight tour that caps the group size and lets you move through the mansion in the dark.

The museum sits at 600 East Charleston Boulevard and is open Wednesday through Monday, closed Tuesdays. Reservations aren’t strictly required, but tickets sell out often enough that I’d book ahead, especially anywhere near Halloween.

Want someone to walk you through it? Take a ghost tour

You can absolutely build your own haunted-Vegas crawl by booking rooms and wandering memorial gardens, but the easiest way to hit the best stories in one night is with a guided ghost tour. Las Vegas has several, ranging from family-friendly walking tours that welcome kids to adults-only experiences that lean into the grittier mob-and-murder history. A good guide fills in the real history behind each site, which honestly makes the ghost stories land harder. If you’re visiting in October, book early. These tours fill fast around Halloween, and the popular time slots go first.

A few tips for planning your haunted Vegas trip

Book the room, not just the property. For places like the Excalibur’s 10th floor or Circus Circus, the specific room or floor is the whole point. Call ahead and ask if you can request it, though keep in mind hotels can’t always guarantee a specific room.

Go in the off-season if you can. The paranormal reputation doesn’t change with the calendar, but crowds and rates do. A quieter weeknight makes it easier to actually feel the atmosphere of a place.

Respect the real history. Some of these stories, especially the MGM Grand fire, involve genuine loss of life. It’s fine to be curious. It’s also worth being respectful about it.

Bring a skeptic and a believer. The best haunted trips I’ve heard about always involve one person who’s certain it’s nonsense and one who’s certain it isn’t. By the end of the night, they’ve usually swapped positions at least once.

Las Vegas has more than enough for the ghost hunters, the history buffs, and the merely curious. Whether you’re standing in Bugsy Siegel’s memorial garden, requesting the 10th floor at the Excalibur, or signing a waiver before walking into a room full of cursed objects, the haunted side of this city is real enough to be worth a night of your trip. Just don’t blame me if you leave the lights on.