Having a sense of humor isn't a prerequisite for service on the federal bench.

With that submitted into evidence, I don't know whether U.S. District Court Judge Miranda Du intended to infuse a little humor into her weighty, 62-page pretrial order in the increasingly strange civil case of the California high roller who claims he was slipped a ketamine mickey while gambling at the MGM Grand Hotel in December 2021. But it sure made me smile.

After more than four years in court, the head-butting rugby scrum of attorneys representing plaintiff Dwight Manley and defendant MGM Resorts International and its Strip namesake casino has finally found something they can agree on.

It was right there on the third page of the judge's order in the section titled "Material Uncontested Facts." Given the contentiousness of the case, which continues to careen toward a February trial date, the "section" reads like a punch line:

"MGM Resorts International is the parent company of MGM Grand Hotel, LLC."

That's it, folks. That's all the two sides officially agree on. Thanks for coming. Drive safely and don't forget to tip your waitress.

Indeed, the MGM Grand on the Las Vegas Strip certainly is a subsidiary of MGM Resorts International. What follows is page after page of contested facts, figures and statements submitted to the court by attorneys for the plaintiff and the defendant.

In a footnote, the judge gives us a clue about the ongoing sparring between the legal camps over even the foundational facts: "Plaintiff proposed this language in an intentionally neutral manner and Defendants would not agree to it. Therefore, Plaintiff proposes this in his own Additional Contested Issues of Fact."

The case is so quirky it has made some Las Vegas gambling observers wonder why the casino failed to resolve the difference with a longtime VIP customer. Manley, a former sports agent who once represented NBA wild man Dennis Rodman, has a knack for real estate development in Southern California. But he wasn't exactly the master of the green felt on the Las Vegas Strip. He was a big player, and big players eventually lose.

High rollers commonly receive write-downs and discounts from megaresorts eager to keep them smiling and dissuade them from taking their bankrolls elsewhere on the Boulevard. Given the legal loggerheads outlined in the judge's pretrial order, I'm betting against this resolution.

It's understandable that a casino might not exactly be in the mood to make nice with a high roller who makes a damning accusation — and then takes out a billboard and creates a website offering a $1 million reward for information associated with the alleged offense.

After all, it's been a tough couple years for the Strip's casino giants.

It's not as if MGM and a string of other megaresorts have been basking in credibility's golden glow. MGM, Resorts World Las Vegas, the Cosmopolitan, Caesars Palace and The Venetian have been fined millions for knowingly catering to illegal bookmakers and practicing extremely lax anti-money laundering compliance. Central to several casinos' headaches is their irresponsible courting of illegal bookie Mathew Bowyer, notorious for winning millions from the former Japanese interpreter for baseball star Shohei Ohtani.

Years of investigations by IRS and U.S. Homeland Security agents, coupled with follow-up investigations by the Nevada Gaming Control Board, found what those who study the real Las Vegas have long understood.

Casino marketing personnel are hired to recruit and keep players — and the bigger the better. The challenge has always been maintaining a degree of due diligence and, by doing so, establishing a plausible deniability. If they fail, and they certainly did, a lot can go wrong.

In that light, the case of the allegedly drugged high roller takes on more gravity. Manley admits he drank Old Fashioned cocktails during his erratic night of blackjack inside the MGM's high limit area. But he denies taking drugs, and he passed a polygraph test.

His attorneys also submitted a hair analysis that indicates ketamine was in Manley's system around the time the $1 million customer signed multiple this-trip-only credit markers. He was allegedly allowed to continue to play even after he shattered an ashtray at the table and cut his hand. Security was called, but he was allowed to play on despite his worsening condition.

Not that you couldn't have guessed by now, but attorneys for MGM dispute the polygraph result and the hair sample drug analysis. They plan to argue to keep the damning documents from being used at trial, according to a court filing.

Along the way, they have also disputed the relevance of a potentially incendiary point raised by Manley's attorneys — that he is far from the only Las Vegas casino resort guest to complain about being drugged surreptitiously during a stay.

All that makes this litigation much more intriguing than the usual Strip player squabble, and far more than a scene in The Hangover minus all the sidekicks. There's much more at stake than the loss of a few hundred thousand dollars.

But as Judge Du has duly noted, the facts of the case remain in substantial dispute.

John L. Smith is an author and longtime columnist. He was born in Henderson and his family's Nevada roots go back to 1881. His stories have appeared in New Lines, Time, Reader's Digest, Rolling Stone, The Daily Beast, Reuters and Desert Companion, among others.