Vegas, baby

After spending four days in Las Vegas, I can safely say that "whatever happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas." So instead of discussing various exploits, which included hanging out with Willie McGinest (no, I am not kidding), I will give you some thoughts on the City of Sin, raw and unedited:

1. Las Vegas represents the very best of America and the very worst of America.

Vegas hotels embody this concept. They are modern marvels, featuring the best in architecture, food, service, and amenities. They also represent some of the best commercial real estate developments in the world, bar none. For those of you who view America as a modern-day Roman empire, Vegas represents the peak of building and human triumph during this particular gilded-age. It’s as if humans have built a modern day Babylon to the god of money. You can see it soaring into the Vegas sky from the Strip. Just go there and take a look.

Where else can you find 10-12 hotels with 10,000 rooms, 5-star dining, gourmet buffets, beautiful pools, lavish casinos, and world-class shopping within a five-mile radius? Answer: no where else.

The strip is really a testament to American ingenuity or better yet, a clever response to the demand for high-end resorts and hotels. Attention to details, combined with the miraculous ability to keep visitor's costs low, make Vegas the premier attraction for vacationers and cash-heavy Americans. Want examples?

- The hotels keep everything clean and in tip-top shape
- The service is amazingly good - Polite, knowledgeable, and accessible people make these hotels run smoothly
- The food is always good, and readily available (you can eat the Bellagio buffet for 20 bucks and have some of the best food in the world)
- Small details like the amount of booze in your drinks are always thought through. Think of the movie Casino where Ace asks his chef about the blue-berries in the muffins.
- The hotel architecture is thematic and completely over-the-top; some would call it pleasing to the eye (but not me!)

Paradoxically, Vegas attracts some of the seediest elements of American society. Drugs, hookers, addicts, organized crime -- you name it. With the very best of America comes the very worst. Exploitation, greed, and sin. But a far more insidious force was in play in Vegas. Scratch the surface and the rot is exposed if you look close enough.

Everyone knows the mob founded Vegas. Everyone knows about prostitution and how it exploits women. Fair enough. Nothing new to me. What really surprised me, however, was something completely unexpected. It was the sheer amount of people visiting Vegas who a. probably couldn’t afford to be there in the first place and b. were getting ripped off by the casinos. Basically, people were getting hosed left and right. Cheap flights, deals on hotel rooms, and cheap buffets make Vegas a good destination for people on a strict budget. But the gambling at these hotels changes this picture entirely. What I saw in Vegas was people throwing away fortunes on the card-tables. And these people were not high-rollers or foreigners with money. They were regular dudes like you and me.

Even if you saved a boat-load of money on your trip-planning, how can you justify gambling thousands of dollars on Vegas card tables? A quick google search will remind you that the odds are ALWAYS stacked against you in Vegas. In other words, the house always a slight percentage edge in each of their games. That said, gambling is like throwing away your money for the slight chance you'll come out ahead. Insane, right?

The problem with Vegas is that attracts people without a lot of money who are suckered into going there with cheap flights, food, and rooms. The reasoning is simple: with the money I don’t spend on rooms and food, I will use for gambling. The Casinos basically make a wager that says: I will make it cheap and easy for you to get here, but in exchange you will gamble enough to make this arrangement profitable.
The Casinos basically hose you for four days and when you're done staying there, you've lost a ton of money. And this brings me back to my original point which is that Vegas brings out the worst in American society. On the one hand you get nice hotels and modern marvels. But on the other hand, you have casinos ruthlessly exploiting people who can't afford to be living or experiencing this lifestyle. You could call it American capitalism at its best or exploitation at its very worse. Either way, it bothered me to a certain degree.

2. Vegas attracts all sorts of interesting people and it functions as a microcosm of America. The weak dollar also makes Vegas an international hotbed of intrigue.

People watching in Vegas is like attending a zoo for the planet earth. You will see every type of person imaginable. Instead of over-generalizing or even attempting to describe what I saw, I will give you a list of my top-four favorite groups:

1. The guy's weekend. Walk around the tables in the Casino and you will quickly identify this particular group. They are rowdy and drunk and ready to high five you after hitting blackjack or seeing the dealer bust. Since most of them married, they quickly want to know “what the women are like in Vegas” since they can’t go out to the singles bars. These guys are about 30-50 and they’re there with friends, looking to win big or come home ahead. These guys also love the strip clubs, a topic they will broach without prompting at the black-jack tables. High-five! Texas rules! 2. The family vacation. Since Vegas has to compete with Indian Casinos, guys like Steve Wynn and Adelson decided to make Vegas a family destination which can attract non-gambling dollars. How do you do this? Build museums, theme parks, golf courses, shopping malls, and “stuff the kids and wife will like.” Well, it worked. Walk around Vegas and you will see 14 year old kids accompanying their parents through the hotel lobbies. This is weird because the gambling age is 21 and you’re literally not allowed on the floor unless you look over 25. Families will also haul their small kids onto the gambling floor, throwing dice or hitting the slots while junior sleeps on their back or arm. Not a pretty sight!

3. The foreign whale. The American dollar is weak relative to other currencies. Aside from boosting exports and weakening the trade deficit, the weak dollar sparks investment into the United States from outside investors or in this case, whales. Whales are a classic Vegas term, which embodies the concept of a foreign gambler who has been flown into Vegas in order to gamble obscene amounts of money. Vegas will show you plenty of that, but I’d like to add a new category: the foreign dolphin. With the dollar so cheap, Vegas is inundated with foreigners looking to spend their money. They may not be millionaires playing 10,000 dollar blackjack, but they’re staying in Vegas to have some serious fun and spend money on clothes. I call them dolphins because they are aquatic mammals smaller than Whales.

4. The addict. Sadly you will notice your fair share of addicts or desperate people. Like alcoholism, gambling can become an addiction or even a disease. And Vegas seems to attract these types of people for obvious reasons.