Money doesn’t grow on trees, but it can appear out of thin air. At least, when award-winning magician Rob Lake is in town.
Lake will be in Memphis on Friday night to make an armored vehicle appear out of nowhere in front of the FedExForum. It’s the kickoff for a promotion by Caesars Entertainment — parent company of Harrah’s Tunica, Horseshoe Casino, and Tunica Roadhouse — that will award one person with a $1 million prize every Saturday night beginning in April.
To enter the Millionaire Maker giveaway, one must be a Total Rewards player. But signing up for Caesar’s Total Reward program is free. Total Rewards members get discounts on dining and hotel rooms, as well as better seats for concerts at the casinos.
Sign-up for the first weekly giveaway begins this coming Monday, April 1st, and the first drawing will take place on Saturday, April 6th. The giveaways will happen every week in Tunica throughout the summer, and there is no set date for when the campaign will end. To enter, you must swipe your Total Rewards card in a kiosk inside one of the Caesars Entertainment casinos in Tunica each week.
“The million dollars has to make it to the casino somehow, so this armored truck is what delivers the million dollars. A millionaire appears out of thin air every week, so I’m making the delivery vessel appear out of thin air,” said Lake, who, in 2008 at age 25, became the youngest person to ever win the prestigious Merlin Award for stage magicians.
“The Merlin Award is the magic industry’s equivalent of the Oscar or Tony or Grammy. It’s the highest honor a magician can receive,” Lake said.
Lake says it’s the first time he’s made such a large vehicle appear in an open, outdoor setting.
“Normally, we’re in a theater, where we have the audience on one side. So we can control the elements, like the lighting and if there’s a draft or wind,” Lake said. “But here, we’ll be in the elements, in the daylight, with people literally all around us on all sides. It’s the most challenging and impossible of conditions to present the illusion, especially with such a large and heavy apparatus. It weighs about 50,000 pounds.”
The armored truck act will take place between 6:15 and 6:45 p.m. on Friday, March 29th in the outdoor entrance courtyard of the FedExForum. The event is free to the public.
