I was in Las Vegas this past weekend with my parents, staying at the MGM Grand “Signature” wing, and I’m returning next weekend to stay at The Mirage with some friends. Some observations:
At the New York, New York casino, the fake trees have electrical outlets in them. The fake Hudson Street intersects with the fake 42nd Street, whereas in real life the two streets are many blocks apart. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
There’s a lot of obvious things to criticize in Las Vegas – the $165 Cirque du Soleil tickets, the way-overpriced food, the odds against you at the casinos, etc. But my two complaints are very specific.
First, with all the effort the casinos put into creating themes like the Venetian, Paris and Planet Hollywood, and with all the money these places have to throw around, the themes are carried out with the absolute lowest level of creativity possible. These places never resist a chance to trade style and coherence for schlock.
All these themed casinos use the same generic slot machines. Why not have the slot machines match the theme? In the New York, New York, for example, there’s a set of Elvis-themed slot machines with a huge Elvis sign on the wall above them. Does Elvis have any special connection to NYC that a gazillion other people don’t have? Plus, the icons on the slots were the same as on all the others – “Bar,” “7,” etc. Except there was one that said “Elvis.” Still, that set of slot machines were really popular. Who really says to himselg, “I want to use the Elvis slots!”
Despite its beautiful indoor mall, The Venetian’s hotel portion, on the exterior, looks unremarkable. And at the mall — including the truly amazing Piazza San Marco, where we ate dinner — there are lots of fake facades with windows. Why not kill two birds with one stone and put some real hotel rooms behind those windows? I’m sure at least some people would want those rooms — those people might actually feel like they’re in Venice (or at least fake Venice) as opposed to feeling like they’re in a big generic rectangular prism like in every other hotel on earth.
At the NY, NY, there’s a fake Brooklyn Bridge right in front of the casino, running parallel to the street – why not have the Brooklyn Bridge cross the street to the take you to other hotels? It could replace the nondescript bridge that's spanning the street currently. That would make it a functioning bridge – thus more integral to the location, as opposed to just window dressing. And it would complete the NY, NY theme, since the Brooklyn Bridge takes you out of Manhattan to somewhere else, like this bridge would with NY, NY. Plus there’s an ad for Zumanity (NY, NY’s Cirque du Soleil show) on top of the Brooklyn Bridge — not that I usually care about marring a fake landmark, but there are like fifteen other bigger Zumanity ads within sight of that ad.
On the inside, the NY, NY casino looks way too similar to the casino at the Paris. Many of the facades and restaurants look nothing like the ones in NY. Though there’s a catch — a particularly bland NY, NY casino concoction like “Broadway Burger” actually wouldn’t be out of place in one particular area of the real NYC — 42nd Street, since 42nd Street actually looks a lot like Las Vegas. Similarly, the theme of the MGM Grand is supposedly “Hollywood,” though it came out more like “Hollywood Boulevard” (a little L.A. joke — I’m learning).
My second complaint is that gambling has become way too mechanized. At the MGM Grand, my high roller mom traded $20 for quarters and gave them out to us to use them periodically in slots at various casinos. But except for the MGM, none of casinos’ slots even took quarters. You could put in dollar bills or a casino card type thing (and maybe credit cards, I forget). And many of them didn’t even have the pull-down bar – you could only push the button to make the wheel spin. And here’s the kicker – when you won, the quarters didn't fall into the tray. No quarters, no clinking noises. You just got a printed voucher for $5.50, which is what my brother got when he won, and you had to trade it in for money at some window somewhere. After you take the quarters and the lever out of the equation, all you have is a big machine that takes your money. And people still sit at these things and play all day long! Ridiculous. You might as well just put in your ATM card and wire the money straight to Steve Wynn.
Even at some roulette wheels, you couldn’t go up to the table with the wheel to make your bets – there were a bunch of TV screens around the table about six feet away from it, and you'd sit at one of them, put in your card, and push the screen to make your bets. My dad pointed out that psychologically, it makes it easier to bet, since it’s a private decision, instead of a public one, and all you have to do is touch a button, instead of counting out chips and putting them down.
I know you don’t go to Las Vegas for class, charm and understatement, but even in the context of the ridiculousness, some things could be improved with just a few creative touches. I guess one good thing to come out of the trip is that when I go back to L.A., I won’t need to get any more change for the laundry.
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