In 2019, Las Vegas casino executive Jon Gray was living the good life. Snazzy designer suits and shaggy hair, the Palms Casino Resort general manager had three beautiful children and a wife who was a former Mrs. Nevada. He was in the middle of helming a $690 million revamp of the legendary casino—purchased away from the financial despair caused by former owner George Maloof—by Station Casinos and the Fertitta family, then-owners of the UFC.
During the early morning hours of May 6, 2019, phones throughout Las Vegas began to buzz with Instagram “story” forwards, group chats blew up and even the local newspaper and blogs got involved. Ruth, Jon’s wife, one of the infamous Palms Twins from the resort’s naughty aughties heyday, posted an image of his custom made wardrobe on the curb of their home. Adjacent to the trash, the caption read “You better hope you make it home b4 the locks get changed so you can get the rest of your shit. Instagram that you F-ing asshole.” In the biggest middle-finger moment in Las Vegas social media history, the story ran its full 24-hours until it expired. Ruth never took down. Women from the west to the Eastside of the valley and up and down the Strip cheered as she let it burn and metaphorically exhaled.
What on Earth did Gray do to warrant such a display? Apparently, it was a case of a Vegas Sunday Funday gone awry. Palms’ Green Street Kitchen debuted its Instagrammable “BRUNCH’N” Experience on May 5, Cinco de Mayo—Gray was in attendance and never returned home that night to his family. Drunk and out of control at his place of work and apparently giving zero Fs Gray was allegedly committing public indiscretions, including making out face with a female employee. Multiple people posted the evidence on Instagram stories and the rest is Divorce Court history.
“Everyone and I mean everyone saw,” a source tells FACTZ. It was only a matter of time that the images made their way back to Jon’s wife—and his well-curated wardrobe made its way to their well-manicured lawn. Ruth filed for divorce in July of that year, over the incident at Palms, which is also coincidentally where she and Gray were married in 2010.
As the decade came to a thunderous close, so did Gray’s time in the casino industry—abruptly leaving Palms after the KAOS nightclub scandal hit the headlines later that year—a triangle of deceit that would take down some of the city’s top executives.
Where does a former casino executive go after his career has been rocked by both professional and personal scandal? In Gray’s case, a roller rink. Gray’s next executive role took him on an unexpected spin as he became president of Flipper’s Roller Boogie Palace, launching a hipster skating experience in Rockefeller Center in 2021. In May 2022, Sentral, a leading prop-tech innovator, building the world’s largest flexible living community, announced that Gray had come on board as its vice president of experience in Denver, commuting to Dallas where his kids and former-wife now live.
Once an experience creator, always an experience creator—but will he make his way back to the city of Sin for a third turn? Only the laundry will tell.
