The Allure of Casinos

Memorial Day is coming up and when I was trying to figure out where to go with my friends, the minute I thought about Atlantic City (AC), I knew I had chosen 'a sure thing' for everybody. I love casinos, and it's got nothing to do with the gambling because I don't gamble that much. Maybe it's the non-stop hedonism of casinos, the idea of staying up all night just for pleasure and entertainment. For occasional gamblers like me, going to a casino doesn't cost that much because drinks are usually on the house, and food is cheap. The first time I went to Las Vegas, it was love at first sight and maybe it's because it's 'Sin City'. What's not to love; they had shopping, clubs and restaurants; all the things I enjoy. Even on a student budget we managed to have a great time. I remember the flight from LA was $50 round-trip and the Days Inn Motel, www.daysinn.com, was $50 per night which worked out to $25 each for the two of us. My friend from London even won a $100 mini 'jackpot' which was a windfall given that the buffet was $10 a head and she ended up treating me to dinners.

When you go to Vegas, you quickly find out that the normal rules of decorum do not apply. What goes on in Vegas truly stays in Vegas. People quickly find out that there's no point in investing a lot of money on accommodation when you're up all night anyway and when my ex-room-mate went, they had 6 people sharing a room includuing her brother. On another occasion when I was on a modest budget, we stayed at the 'Circus Circus', www.circuscircus.com, which has a circus theme as the name implies so that meant the whole hotel was over-run with little kids so I ended up giving up my room because all I did was party all night anyway. On another trip, my friends and I were paying a lot for staying in the Hilton, www.hilton.com, we never really got to bed so we gave up our rooms and the 4 of us moved into one room in a cheap motel off the Strip. The cheap motels off the strip are always interesting because they have skanky casinos full off deadbeat characters who have been banned from the major casinos on the Strip. You spend all your time at the major casinos anyway so it doesn't matter where you keep your baggage.