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The Disneyland for Adults
A MORE OR LESS general supposition is that any planned visitation to Las Vegas stems from a heart-felt desire to gamble, to beat the gamblers and bring home a pocketful of loot. Momentarily forgotten is the fact that Las Vegas is now the “entertainment capital” of the world. A constantly changing stream of many of the top names of show business traverse those arid acres and make it a veritable platform for all the performing arts.
Here is 24-hour entertainment, around the clock, in luxurious surroundings; elaborate stage extravaganzas on a scale impossible any other place in the world.
Surely, Fremont Street, “Glitter Gulch,” after dusk is the most amazing sight to be found in the northern hemisphere. Each neon “spectacular” seems to be trying to outshine the other. Not even fabled Broadway has the dazzle to match Casino Center in downtown Las Vegas.
Out on the “Strip” are to be found a row of a dozen magnificent hotel-casino-lounge complexes. Complete resort centers, one of them spreads out over 18 acres. One boasts of three swimming pools. The Sands has 563 rooms and the Sahara has 1,000 air-conditioned rooms. The Stardust, for the moment, is the largest with 1,300.
Building skyscrapers is a new pursuit at Las Vegas. In the past, it has been the norm to construct sprawling, horizontal layouts. Now, the “front foot” cost of land has become so astronomical the only way to go is “up.” Some new 20-story-plus hotels are being erected on the Strip. The Dunes has built a 28-story building over the main casino. Next door, a $22-million hotel, Caesar’s Palace, is being built and it will be ready for occupancy May 1. All transient facilities are overloaded on weekends and with all the wealth of rooms available, accommodations are still not plentiful. Unless you are genuinely addicted to the pursuit of gambling, the energetic appeal of Las Vegas will begin to bore you after passage of four or five days. Exposure to a town of wide-open boom and fully exposed female bosom has its surfeit.
Some facilities are modest in cost. Gambling requires “suckers” to make the entire setup work. (One casino is said to require an intake of over $50,000 a day just to break even.) To bring in a satisfactory volume of “tourists” hotel and food costs are kept down to an attractive minimum. Los Angeles and Southern California provides a large per cent of the visitors. This is aided and abetted by low-price “air excursion” flights and the construction of a new and direct Interstate Highway 91.
The visitor in Las Vegas rapidly regresses. He jumps immediately into pursuits his cultural background and training would not permit him to do in his home surroundings. He swaggers into the gambling halls, sees hundreds of people happily losing their money, and joins in with them. The sounds of gambling are all important here. If it were not for the crowds and activity he would suffer a guilt complex and possibly feel he was committing a public offense. Some of the plainer casinos, especially those with the “authentic Western atmosphere” suffer from a lack of mass patronage. Visitors note the nearly deserted parking areas and themselves stay away.
The fantastic neon architecture of Las Vegas is an exuberant and vital new American culture. The facade of the Stardust, out on the Strip, is a Gargantua of flashing, colored lights, 12,000 bulbs. It is over a block long. At 2 a.m. I made colored movies of this dazzler.
I think it could be correctly asserted that gamblers are born and not made. In many people the compulsion to gamble runs as deep as a chronic illness (which indeed it may well actually be). Others, such as myself, want 26¢ change when they lay down a quarter.
Step off a plane at McCarran Field, the new $5.5-million airport south of town, and a bank of 80 slot machines bids you welcome in the main building.
An unbelievable sight results on walking in a lounge fully a city-block long, witnessing hundreds earnestly engaged in playing roulette, blackjack, craps or stuffing coins into endless rows of slot machines.
A first reflection is “Why should gambling be illegal? Why is it unlawful in nearly all other localities of the country?” Gambling in Nevada is a “legitimate” business conducted on a scale so vast exact figures are nonexistent. The hoodlums controlling Las Vegas are most careful in keeping the locality as a “fun in the sun” resort center. There is never any strenuous disciplinary violence in Vegas. Necessary restraints and gang justice are always dealt with outside the state of Nevada.
No one ever wins at gambling. From time to time you may read of individuals who “hit it big” at Vegas but a casual visit to the Las Vegas Western Union office will cancel these optimistic stories for here you will witness long lines of sad-faced people who, in desperation, have wired friends at home for money to get out of town.
There is no mathematical chance of winning money in Vegas. The casinos take a percentage of every dollar wagered. As long as the marks keep playing, they increase the casino’s profit winnings. Gambling produces nothing, adds nothing to our economy or to civilization.
This anthropological essay derives from a late November week spent in Las Vegas. The excursion, completely objective, resulted in copious note taking and dozens of sheets of transcribed manuscript. The indulgence of the membership is begged. More observations in February.
Gradylogue, No, 24, January 1966
Hand-set in 11-pt. Wayside Roman for members of National Amateur Press Association by Milton R. Grady at Pillbox Private Press, Des Moines, Ia. 50317