You know it’s a slow news day when the headline of the local paper is “Beware of the lure of casino carpets“. But it does bring to light something I’ve always pondered — why do those carpets have to be so tacky and awful?
My favorite quote from the article: “Casino carpet is known as an exercise in deliberate bad taste that somehow encourages people to gamble,” David Schwartz, director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, wrote in an essay.
They also mentioned that the hideous designs don’t show dirt, spilled drinks and cigarette burns easily.
What entertained me the most about the article was the man mentioned that has made it his hobby to take pictures of casino carpet, and numerous pictures were featured in the paper. Unfortunately, those aren’t in the online article, but here is a LiveSearch of Casino Carpet Images. Just in case you’re bored…
I noticed the carpet right away the first time I visited Star City, the massive casino in Sydney. (It used to be the biggest casino in the Southern Hemisphere before Melbourne built a bigger one.) The carpeting is awful! My husband told me in all seriousness that it was so vomit stains wouldn’t show up.