The Casinos

In the interest of my career and with a sense of morbid curiousity I checked out six more casinos. 

The MGM Grand, The Parisian, The Galaxy, Studio City, The Grand Lisboa and The Lisboa. The only thing that stood out from the pack was the two Macau Peninsula casinos. Both the Lisboa’s were pretty seedy and considering the new one is only ten years old I was a little surprised. The new one even had an ageing stripper on the stage with the bar separating the talent from the patrons. It looked like something out of Vegas in the 60’s.

The interesting thing for me about many of these was that once you were on the gaming floor you are free from any distractions. There are no clocks, they trade 24 hours a day, there is no other stimulant such as TV’s, keno or sports betting options to take you away from your game of choice. Drink service was not really a thing, the smoking rooms were inside and elaborately decked out, player loyalty was huge (requiring a passport) each had a signature “offering” to get you through the doors that made it unique from its competitors. 

For instance the big thing happening at the MGM Grand was the Harry Potter Orchestral Spectacular. Here you could listen to the first four films works being played live while watching the movies on the world’s largest LCD screen.

At The Parisian the thing to get you in was a recreation of the Eiffel Tower which is half scale version of the real thing. You can ascend for around $22 and there were people lined up to do it. It is connected to The Venetian which has its signature gondola rides with your choice of three recreated canals from Venice where you can see replica building, including St Marks Square, while being serenaded by your gondolier. The best shopping district is here and instead of going for purely couture high end brands it has the more accessible (and affordable) brand names that are known throughout the world. 

The Galaxy take a more modern tac as it tries to recreate the New York Broadway district. By day it is dining but by night is entertainment as well.

Studio City tries to top them all on the entertainment front. It has a figure eight ferris wheel built into the casino’s structure giving you amazing views of the region. There is also a massive VR theme park with an array of activities to mess with your mind and currently playing is a show called “Elektron” which is billed as the most amazing stunt show in the world. 

The Wynn Palace has the amazing water show at its front door, quite literally, and to enter the casino they have a free cable car that takes you on a short trip over the water and of course deposits you near the casino’s entrance.

Sadly the signature City of Dreams show “The House of Dancing Water” was down for maintenance but it has the most amazing reviews and will apparently come back on line within the month. It also currently had a display of 10 rare Ferraris.

The two old Casinos (The Lisboa’s) didn’t really go in for anything quite as over the top however they are under renovation and will be adding the Versace Hotel brand to the stable and lets not forget the Grand Lisboa itself, an amazing site to behold. 

All in all the take away was that when you have access to large numbers of gamblers who come to your venue as an event, some may save up for a year or more before they try their luck, then you can extract very large sums of money indeed. There is little or no regulation at the venues, most had metal detectors as you entered but I did not see one person stopped. They are keen to check your age and I’m told prostitution is a big thing in the old town. There was nothing evident on the strip as no doubt that would take away from business. While there were plenty of exciting things happening and quite substantial prizes to be won I could see no real innovation in the poker machine space that the Club industry in NSW wasn’t already undertaking. Whatever the take away is it is truly amazing to see gambling done on such a colossal scale.