{"id":3337,"date":"2019-02-05T20:40:22","date_gmt":"2019-02-05T20:40:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/socialcareworkforce\/?p=3337"},"modified":"2019-02-06T10:02:36","modified_gmt":"2019-02-06T10:02:36","slug":"viva-las-vegas-observations-about-gambling-from-las-vegas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/socialcareworkforce\/2019\/02\/05\/viva-las-vegas-observations-about-gambling-from-las-vegas\/","title":{"rendered":"Viva Las Vegas! Observations about gambling from Las Vegas\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Stephanie Bramley<\/strong><\/a> is a Research Associate at the NIHR Health and Social Care Workforce Research Unit, King\u2019s College London.<\/em> (702 words)<\/p>\n

Earlier this year I visited Las Vegas with two of my friends.\u00a0 It was my first trip to Las Vegas and as a researcher who explores the impact of gambling for vulnerable people I was somewhat apprehensive about what I may see in Las Vegas.\u00a0 However, the trip provided a good opportunity to explore gambling in \u2018Sin City\u2019.<\/p>\n

The first thing that struck me was that gambling is synonymous with visiting hotels.\u00a0 The majority of hotels in Las Vegas are \u2018gaming hotels\u2019 meaning that they have gambling facilities inside, typically a casino.\u00a0 Indeed the casino is often central to hotel life \u2013 meaning that you often have to walk through a casino in order to visit any other part of the hotel.\u00a0 For example, we stayed at the Paris Las Vegas whose check-in desks were situated off to the right-hand side of the casino floor. Furthermore, because of the location of the check-in desks it may be that children and young people may be exposed to gambling activities.\u00a0 We did see a few families in the hotel who were visiting the hotel\u2019s restaurants.\u00a0 Although the official visitor statistics state that fewer children (classified as individuals under 21 years of age) visited Las Vegas in 2017 compared to 2016 (GLS Research, no date).<\/p>\n

Another observation is that in the hotels and casinos we visited (i.e. The Bellagio, Caesars Palace, The Venetian, Paris, Hard Rock Cafe) there was a lack of signage \u2013 particularly in relation to how to exit the hotel complex or casino (see picture below).\u00a0 This meant that we often had to ask a member of staff for directions to an exit, with the staff member\u2019s response typically being \u201cthrough the casino\u201d!\u00a0\u00a0 This combined with some casinos often having dim lighting, a blue sky (in the Paris Hotel, see picture below), no windows and no clocks could contribute to a sense of disorientation, dissociation and losing track of time.\u00a0 This resonates with research conducted by Sch\u00fcll<\/a> (2012) who dedicated a chapter of her book to the casino design.\u00a0 We certainly spent plenty of time wandering around, somewhat aimlessly!<\/p>\n

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As for the gambling experience, we noticed that particular efforts were made to appeal to stereotypical male heterosexual gamblers.\u00a0 For example in the Paris Hotel the uniform for some female members of staff (e.g. croupiers\/dealers\/waitresses) comprised a bustier or corset with knickers and fishnet tights.\u00a0 Some of these members of staff were also dancing on top of a bar which was located near to gaming tables offering blackjack, roulette and poker.\u00a0 On one evening female members of staff were dressed in football shirts to reflect that the National Football League Conference Playoffs were taking place.\u00a0\u00a0 We also noticed that females were employed to offer massages to gamblers whilst they were gambling (i.e. at a poker table or slot machine), perhaps as a stress-reducing tactic.\u00a0 Such uniforms and massages may be particularly appealing to some gamblers and provide a welcome distraction from their gambling endeavours.<\/p>\n

We also noticed the constant presence of recorded background music in the casinos and instances where live music was sometimes present in the evenings, but in bars close to the casino floor.\u00a0 This corresponds with the findings of my PhD research<\/a> which found that casino managers in the UK employed recorded background music and live music in casinos (Bramley, 2015).\u00a0 In Vegas, like the UK, live music was often situated away from the casino floor and used to entertain casino visitors.\u00a0 In one particular bar visitors were encouraged by the musicians to dance and sing-along to the music.<\/p>\n

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Picture of the casino floor in the Paris Las Vegas<\/p><\/div>\n

Another constant presence within the casinos was the smell of cigarette or cigar smoke.\u00a0 In the UK people are banned from smoking in enclosed spaces, but in Vegas smoking is permitted in many places.\u00a0 This means that members of the public and casino employees are exposed to passive or second-hand smoking.\u00a0 This has led to some casinos investing in air-filtration systems in an attempt to improve air quality in casinos (e.g. Marcus, 2010).<\/p>\n

The promotion of responsible gambling was notably absent!\u00a0 We did not see any obvious promotion of, or reference to responsible gambling\/gaming<\/u> (the latter term is how gambling is often described in the USA) at any point during our visit.\u00a0 This contrasts with other casinos that I have visited, for example, in Australia, in Melbourne\u2019s Crown casino there is a \u201cResponsible Gaming Support Centre\u201d which is located inside (Crown Melbourne, no date)<\/p>\n

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Away from the 4.2 mile long Las Vegas Strip, we visited Downtown Vegas, which has museums and retro casinos.\u00a0 For example, the Golden Nugget casino has the largest piece of gold ever found that weighs 28kg or almost 62lb! In Downtown and Fremont Street we found reminders of old Vegas, for example, there were lots of neon signs (see picture below) although many of the neon signs are now on display at the Neon Museum (Wells<\/a> & Scott, no date).\u00a0 Gambling was also somewhat cheaper in Downtown Vegas.\u00a0 As an example,\u00a0 the minimum bet was $15 (approximately \u00a311) to play roulette in one casino on the Strip, compared to $5 (approximately \u00a33.80) in Downtown Vegas.\u00a0 The lower minimum bet also applied to slot machines, which could be played for as little as 1\u00a2 per spin (less than a penny!).<\/p>\n

All in all, Las Vegas is definitely a city where anything goes! We had an interesting trip and I would like to thank my co-contributors \u2013 Amelia Mudd and Sharon Wimbles.<\/p>\n

Stephanie Bramley<\/a> is a Research Associate at the NIHR Health and Social Care Workforce Research Unit, King\u2019s College London.<\/em><\/p>\n

References<\/h1>\n

Bramley, S. (2015).\u00a0 Exploring the presence, experience and influence of background music in gambling situations<\/em>.\u00a0 The University of Sheffield: Sheffield, UK. Available at http:\/\/etheses.whiterose.ac.uk\/8411\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Crown Melbourne (no date).\u00a0 Responsible Gaming Support Centre<\/em>.\u00a0 Accessed January 29, 2019, from https:\/\/www.crownmelbourne.com.au\/getmedia\/07a7bb62-4bc8-4ddd-844a-e2f3f3cd2cc6\/Crown-Melbourne-Casino-RSG-Support-Centre-Brochure.pdf.aspx<\/p>\n

GLS Research (no date).\u00a0 Las Vegas Visitor Profile Study 2017<\/em>.\u00a0 Accessed January 29, 2019, from https:\/\/assets.simpleviewcms.com\/simpleview\/image\/upload\/v1\/clients\/lasvegas\/2017_Las_Vegas_Visitors_Profile_Study_1__7b2e5a81-585c-48e6-840c-d7b9face9140.pdf<\/a><\/p>\n

Marcus, S. (2010, February 14).\u00a0 Despite health risks, casino dealers still exposed to smoke.<\/em>\u00a0 Las Vegas Sun<\/em>.\u00a0 Accessed January 29, 2019, from https:\/\/lasvegassun.com\/news\/2010\/feb\/14\/smoky-casino-good-business\/<\/p>\n

Sch\u00fcll, N. (2012).\u00a0 Addicted by design: Machine gaming in Las Vegas<\/em>.\u00a0 Princeton, USA: Princeton University Press.<\/p>\n

Wells, D. & Scott, A.J. (no date).\u00a0 Las Vegas\u2019s neon-sign graveyard \u2013 in pictures<\/em>.\u00a0 The Guardian<\/em>. Accessed January 29, 2019, from https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/visit-las-vegas\/gallery\/2017\/apr\/19\/las-vegass-neon-sign-graveyard-in-pictures<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stephanie Bramley is a Research Associate at the NIHR Health and Social Care Workforce Research Unit, King\u2019s College London. (702 words) Earlier this year I visited Las Vegas with two of my friends.\u00a0 It was my first trip to Las … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":118,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[114],"tags":[113],"class_list":["post-3337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gambling","tag-stephanie-bramley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/socialcareworkforce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/socialcareworkforce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/socialcareworkforce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/socialcareworkforce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/118"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/socialcareworkforce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3337"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/socialcareworkforce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3337\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3349,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/socialcareworkforce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3337\/revisions\/3349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/socialcareworkforce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/socialcareworkforce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kcl.ac.uk\/socialcareworkforce\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}