Deadly Snake captured in Australia's SkyCity Casino

Here’s a new casino experience: seeing a deadly snake near the slot machines! This is the ordeal that visitors of SkyCity Casino in Darwin, Australia were dealing with recently.

A 1-meter-long yellow lipped sea snake made its way through SkyCity’s front doors, and apparently nobody carded the serpent. In all seriousness, though, a yellow lipped sea snake has 12 times the amount of venom necessary to kill a human. These yellow, grey and black snakes are found in many countries around southeast Asia, but this particular one somehow made its way to the seaside town of Darwin.

Luckily, casino staff was quick to come to the rescue when patrons saw the snake. One of the staff was actually brave enough to stuff the serpent into a lunch bag until the local snake catcher, Phil Manigon, arrived on the scene. Manigon then took the snake and released it into the nearby East Point Reserve.

Speaking on how the snake found its way from an Asian country like Japan, South India or Samoa, where they are normally found, environmental scientist Mick Guinea said the following:

It was thrilling. It’s always exciting when animals cross into uncharted territories. There is no breeding population for these snakes in Australia. It’s very likely they could naturally be migrating.

She had the potential to breed a colony. It’s almost breeding season, and she was in great shape with a layer of fat and all of the conditions to have been carrying fertilized eggs.

So as if having a snake in the SkyCity Casino that’s more venomous than a deadly taipan snake isn’t enough, this one also had the potential to hatch lots of eggs somewhere in the casino.

But if there’s any solace to be had here – besides the fact that nobody was harmed – it’s that yellow lippid sea snakes are one of the more laid-back breeds. As Guinea explained, they “loath to bite” and generally avoid confrontations with people. Even with this reassurance, though, nobody in the SkyCity Casino was rushing to pet the creature. And seeing as how the yellow lippid snake has enough venom to kill a person 12 times over, it’s definitely a good thing that nobody got close.