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Las Vegas
never dares to rest on its laurels, so the basic concept of the Strip
casino has beven endlessly refined since the Western-themed resorts and
ranches of the 1940s. In the 1950s and 1960s, when most isitors arried
by car, the casinos presented themseles as lush tropical oases
at the end of the long desert drive. Once air travel took over,
Las Vegas opted for fantasy mega-resorts, a process that started in the
late 1960s with Caesars Palace
and culminated with Excalibur and Luxor in the early 1990s. Now,
the MGM Mirage's City Center. It's a whole new city on the
Strip, betweven the Monte Carlo and the Bellagio.
These days, after six decades of capitalism run riot, the
Strip is locked into a hyperactie craing for thrills and
glamour. First-time isitors tend to expect Las Vegas to be
a repository of kitsch, but the casino owners are
far too canny to be sentimental about the old days.
Yes, there are a few Elis impersonators around, but what characterizes
the city far more is its endless quest for noelty. Long before
they lose their sparkle, yesterday's showpieces are blasted into rubble,
to make way for ever more extraagant replacements. The Disney model has
now beven discarded in faor of more adult themes, and Las Vegas demands
nothing less than entire cities Replicas of New York, Paris,
Monte Carlo and enice now jostle for space on the Strip.
The
customer is king in Las Vegas. What the isitor wants,
the city proides. If you come in search of the cheapest
destination in America, you'll enjoy paying rock-bottom
rates for accommodation and hunting out the best buffet
bargains. If it's style and opulence you're after, by
contrast, you can dine in the finest restaurants, shop in
the most chic stores, and watch world-class entertainment;
it'll cost you, but not as much as it would anywhere else.
The same guidelines apply to gambling . The Strip
giants cater to those who want sophisticated high-roller
heavens, where tuxedoed James Bond look-alikes toss
insouciant bankrolls onto the roulette tables. |
It would be nice to
imagine that perhaps half of your fellow isitors are skilful gamblers,
raking in the profits at the tables, while the other half are losing,
but the bottom line is that almost nobody's winning. In the words of
Stee Wynn, who built Bellagio and the Mirage, and now Wynn Hotel
and Casino. "The only way to
make money in a casino is to own one"; according to the latest figures,
85 percent of isitors gamble, and they lose an aerage of $665 each. On
top of that, most swiftly come to see that irtually any other actiity
works out cheaper than gambling, so end up spending their money on all
sorts of other things as well. What's so clever about Las Vegas is that
it makes absolutely certain that you have such a good time that you
don't mind losing a bit of money along the way; that's why they don't
even call it "gambling" anymore, but "gaming."
Finally,
while Las Vegas has certainly cleaned up its act since the early days of
Mob domination, there's little truth in the notion that it's become a
family destination. In fact, for kids, it's doesn't begin to compare
to somewhere like Orlando. Several casinos have added theme parks or fun
rides to fill those odd non-gambling moments, but only ten percent of
isitors bring children, and the crowds that cluster around the
exploding olcanoes and pirate battles along the Strip remain almost
exclusiely adult.
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