Casino Hopping

One of the great joys of visiting Las Vegas* is wandering from Casino Hotel to Casino Hotel, seeing the shows (free or pay) that are presented to entice people to spend time and money within the Casino in question. In addition to seeing the shows, the casinos themselves are architectural marvels decorated to the nth degree each with their own unique theme. They also have unique stores (i.e. Luxor has several Egyptian replicas stores, the Excalibur has lots of stores selling medieval/renaissance items and so on) often to the scale of large (~150 store) shopping malls.

Of personal interest is the social stratification that occurs among the casinos. We've expounded on this in past photoessays (see the Vegas pages from Demaris & Jay's US Tour), how each of the casinos targets a particular demographic and focuses their attention on that demographic. For example the Excalibur focuses on Lower Middle Class families with children. Contrasted with the Luxor that targets Empty-Nest Middle Class 50somethings. Or the Mirage which targets Upper Class Republicans (not kidding - I've never seen more Rush Limbaugh look alikes in one place.) It's fascinating to see this stratification, the people and the support structures (stores, restaurants, shows) that the Casinos have enacted to entice their target audience.

As you can see casinos and gaming have their own culture and UNLV has an Institute of Gaming Culture (associated link is to their on-line special collections), dedicated to studying and preserving all aspects of the unique culture that has sprung up around Casinos. We wanted to but didn't have time to tour the exhibits/art gallery at theUNLV's Gaming Studies Research Center (link is to the on-line art gallery - fantastic!) but we hope to sometime in the future.

This is the lake and facade that fronts Treasure Island Casino.

About every 45 minutes, as a free show, Treasure Island has two ships (one British, one Pirate) that "sail" (the ships are on a track) in from behind the casino and duel in the lake in front of their casino. After a good bit of verbal posturing they engage in a naval battle.

As you can see there's lots of cannon fire, explosions, and flame everywhere. Fire and flame is rampant on both the ships and on the Caribbean Village facade. With that said, some of the shops in the facade are real - people can be seen (but not in our photos :-( ) eating on the deck of the restaurants while the battle occurs! At the end of the battle one of the ships sinks.

You can't really see in these pictures but the losing captain literally "goes down with his ship. As they reset the battle/ships, he "comes up with his ship" in exactly the same spot/pose that he was in when he went down. When it's time for the ship to go down, the captain steps into foot braces and holds a salute until he and the ship go under. The captain then grabs an underwater breathing device. When the ride resets he puts down the breathing apparatus and resumes his salute as the ship comes out of the water.

We came back for another viewing of the ship battle. Specifically, a night duel.

The lake/fountain in front of New York, New York Casino has become Las Vegas's 911 monument. For over a year now Firemen and Policemen from around the country have been bringing signed/noted T-shirts from their regional FD/PD and leaving them on the fence that surrounds the lake/fountain.

We've tried to capture the enormity of the number of FD/PD shirts here but we couldn't get a wide enough angle shot. Suffice it to say that the the previous shot was taken from a position at the base of the escalators seen back and center. The T-shirts are 3-4 deep all the way around the lake.

A night shot of the fountain/lake with the Excalibur Casino in the background.

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