Gambling remains the bedrock of the Las Vegas experience.
At most recent count, 28 other US states had joined Nevada in
offering commercial casinos, and all except two had legalized some
form of gambling, but thanks to its colossal volume of business,
Las Vegas still does it better than the rest. Ninety percent of
visitors to the city gamble, with an average budget of $500, and in
the end everything else is just frippery; it's the gambling that
makes every flourish possible. The shows and restaurants, tigers
and volcanoes - no matter how profitable any might be - are all
just designed to make you stick around longer and spend more money
on the slots and tables.
While the casinos these days prefer to talk about "gaming"
rather than gambling, no one plays for fun alone. It's the
gut-wrenching excitement of staking your own hard cash in pursuit
of a fortune that keeps the tension at fever pitch. Most visitors
have their own preferred form of gambling, with the three main
choices being table games such as blackjack or craps, played
in the public gaze and surrounded by glamorous trimmings; slot
machines , a more private pleasure in which the potential
winnings are enormous, and you're spared the fear of not seeming
au fait with the rules; and sports betting , with its
hyped-up atmosphere and scope for proving that you know more than
the bookies.
The fact that the gambling industry is still booming is a credit
to the casinos' ability to change with the times. During the first
few decades of Las Vegas's supremacy, the typical gambler was male
and likely to be familiar with a wide range of card games thanks to
years spent in military service. Slots and other machines, however,
overtook the tables from 1983 onwards, and they now generate around
65 percent of Nevada's gaming revenue. In the face of the large
proportion of modern visitors who see casino games as complicated
and intimidating, the casinos are desperate to make gambling as
easy, user-friendly and innocuous as possible. All offer free
lessons, instructional videos on their in-room TVs, and the like.
On the surface, those well-dressed and welcoming dealers make
things seem democratic and casual, but all that deference serves in
fact to make anyone who sits down at the tables feel like part of
an exclusive and sophisticated elite.
Despite Las Vegas's reputation as a stronghold of crime ,
there's no suggestion that gamblers themselves are being cheated.
The casinos don't need to cheat; they know they're certain to make
money. Yes, the occasional high-roller can seriously damage the
corporate balance sheet - thus Australian TV magnate Kerry Packer
once won twenty consecutive hands of baccarat in twenty minutes at
the Mirage , at $250,000 per hand. Overall, however, the
odds are stacked in the casinos' favor. In the case of table games,
each has some combination of a quantifiable "house edge"
incorporated into its rules, or a set way of skimming the top off
players' winnings. With slots, it's even more straightforward -
they're simply programmed to pay out less than they take in, though
only the casinos themselves know just how much less.
The average slot machine on the Strip generates $125 profit per
day; each table game makes an average of almost $2000.
Gambling is of course supremely addictive , and Las Vegas
not surprisingly has a higher percentage of problem gamblers than
any other city in the world. The generally accepted advice for
visitors who want to experience the thrill while minimizing the
risk is never to gamble more than you're prepared to lose. In
addition, if you want to play for any length of time, don't bet
more than around one-fiftieth of your total budget at any one
moment. Thus if you've set aside $250 with which to gamble, it
makes sense to play $5 slot machines, or bet with $5 roulette
chips; if you've got $50, play with $1 stakes. Remember that even
if the house edge on your chosen game is as low as two percent,
that doesn't mean you'll lose two percent of your money and walk
away with the remaining 98 percent. It means that if you play long
enough, you'll almost certainly lose it all.
As for where to gamble , that really depends on how you
see gambling. If you think it's all about fun and glamour, then the
Strip is the place to be, though the high minimum stakes at
the largest casinos can mean you'll lose your money uncomfortably
fast. If you feel that an authentic gambling hall should be gritty,
grimy, and peopled by hard-bitten "characters," you may be happier
downtown . If you see betting as a business, and want as
much bang for your buck as possible, head instead for a locals
casino , and especially the members of the Stations chain,
which tend to offer more generous odds at video poker and the
like.
For the moment, all gambling has to take place in public. Even
though the top casinos try to give the impression of setting
exclusive areas aside for high rollers, anyone is entitled to
stroll in and watch. Insiders predict an imminent change in the
law, however, to allow private gambling rooms or separate "clubs"
within public casinos; the London Club in the Aladdin
appears poised to lead the way.