The world’s most-subscribed YouTube personality, Jimmy “MrBeast” Donaldson, this month filmed a huge, high production game show in Las Vegas. Venues included performance spaces at Rio and Luxor casino resorts, and the city’s 65,000- seater Allegiant Stadium, home of the Las Vegas Raiders.
That would be news enough in itself (MrBeast has 307 million subscribers on YouTube). But to add to the Vegas pizzazz, there has been quite a bit of controversy around the filming.
Around 2,000 people were at Allegiant Stadium for the event, in which they were competing for $5 million in cash. The money was on display in a pile at the center of the field.
However, dozens of reports have since emerged of contestants facing medical issues, unprepared crews, and aggressive gameplay causing injuries.
The YouTuber was filming the first stage of his Beast Games collaboration with Amazon MGM. The Las Vegas event saw 2,000 people filmed for the YouTube channel, with just 1,000 selected to go through to the main show.
In recent weeks, MrBeast has been embroiled in several other controversies. That included several fellow YouTube creators accusing him of promoting gambling to minors and fixing prize giveaways worth millions of dollars without informing contestants.
The Las Vegas Events
MrBeast’s collaboration with Amazon, Beast Games, is claimed to be one of his biggest productions yet. And that’s from a man who is known for ridiculous high-value giveaways and other stunts.
Right from the start, things seemed off at Allegiant Stadium to many contestants. Some said they had originally been told that the competition would have 1,000 participants. That’s a fact that can be seen in early advertisements for attendees.
But there were actually 2,000 competitors. The whole event was also kept under a veil of security, with some contestants reportedly being dropped from the game simply for walking around Las Vegas with their show wristbands on before filming began.
A spokesperson for MrBeast said the intention had always been to have 2,000 competitors during the first phase, then cut down to 1,000 for the Amazon MGM show.
During the events, contestants were pitted against each other in physical games. Many older contestants said they were unaware that these kind of trials were what they signed up for. A previous hit MrBeast video had followed the format of the hit TV show Squid Games, with a mix of skill-based and physical tasks.
Once the games started, contestants were asked to stay in Allegiant Stadium for three days. Some were denied medication, food, and access to proper hygiene. People were injured during the games, with a dozen contestants taken to nearby Las Vegas hospitals. Which, given that the prize was a literal $5 million dollar cash pile, seems like the team should have been prepared for.
A spokesperson for MrBeast responded in a statement.
“The MrBeast promotional video shoot, which included over 2,000 participants, was unfortunately complicated by the CrowdStrike incident, extreme weather, and other unexpected logistical and communications issues, which we are currently reviewing, but we are grateful that virtually all of those invited to Toronto for our next production have enthusiastically accepted our invitation. We have communicated directly with 97% of the 2,000 people who attended to ask for feedback, have launched a formal review of the process, and have taken steps to ensure that we learn from this experience and we are excited to welcome hundreds of men and women to the world’s largest game show in history.”
David is an online casino expert who specializes in online slots and boasts over 10 years experience writing about iGaming. He has written for a wide range of notable publications, including eSports Insider and WordPlay Magazine.
David graduated Derby University with a BA Degree in English Literature and Creative Writing.
