musings

Decided to wander off and return later. We went to the Steamboat, a casino which looked like one covered with thousands of bulbs. The “hull” was surrounded by swirling water and a fake dock and the whole thing looked quite realistic. Inside, it was a bit more civilised (inappropriate word for Las Vegas) than Mr Sy’s. In addition to the slots, they had roulette, blackjack, poker, 21 and craps. The most puzzling game was Keno. People were sitting in cinema type seats doing nothing. At the front was an electronic board with a few numbers lit up. There was a row of tellers behind bars taking money in exchange for cards similar to bingo cards. Craps was even more puzzling. Most tables had four croupiers and there was so much activity that it was a wonder even four managed to know what was going on. Watched people losing $6 to $10 per turn of the roulette wheel, and heard people on the poker table say “raise you a hundred dollars” like in the films. Free drinks and cigarettes were supplied to people at the tables by grotesque hags dressed up in frilly knickers and garters with hearts stuck on their bosoms.

We had a beer there and moved on to the world famous Caesars Palace. What an appropriate name for the ultimate in decadence. Three huge fountains were frothing and splashing away in front of the hotel and a constant line of taxis was picking up passengers or dropping them off. They all looked stinking rich. We walked through the automatic doors into a dimly-lit casino. They had the same facilities as the other place, but with a Roman theme. The change girls were dressed in toga style mini-skirts, for instance. One huge machine in the entrance hall took $1 bills, another took $5 bills per play. Shôn and I wandered over to the tables to watch Stud poker. Almost immediately a man in a tuxedo signalled to us. Did we want two seats at the tables? We went over to look at the Cadillac De Ville on display, to be won on one of the one-arm bandits. A woman was sitting there obviously determined to win it; she was shovelling dollars in as fast as the machine would take them.

So far I had resisted the temptation to play the machines, but I spotted a 21 machine. You sat at a console, inserted 25¢ (or more) and the machine played pontoon with you. Won 25¢ on my first go so I wandered off. There was a large area set aside for horse racing. All the cards were mounted on a huge wall and rows and rows of cinema type seats faced it. Bit different from an English bookies, I thought.

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, August 24th, 1976 at 12:21 pm and is filed under travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.