My buddy Santi knows it all too well, so too my brother Rory, that being the one back-up rule I have about what we’re to get up to whenever we visit a new place, or indeed if we return to one which we’ve visited before. That backup rule is that we hit at least one casino in the area and dare I say, since I remain a last-minute planner and always have to maintain that element of spontaneity about my trips, this last-minute rule tends to be invoked more often than not.
Well it’s a simple matter of the casino experience never getting old and it never gets old for a number of reasons.
There’s been a huge rise in online casinos with more and more people preferring to do their gambling online as opposed to visiting a physical casino, particularly those who would otherwise visit a casino purely for the gambling aspect of it. So to keep the numbers filing into their venues, physical casinos no longer focus purely on the gambling offering they have for their guests. There are usually all sorts of other entertainment away from gambling or to complement the gambling, such as professional live events. I remember thoroughly enjoying the circus that came into town, but that was at one of the entertainment arenas of one of the local casinos. Nevertheless, that’s pretty much how it is with many of the bigger casinos around the world — there’s always some or other live entertainment event to enjoy.
I should perhaps add resident nightclub to this list as well, but yeah, the bars and restaurants housed in casinos are usually of very high quality, so much so that some people just visit certain casinos for nothing more than knocking down a few at the bar or dining in the restaurant.
Perhaps the biggest reason why the casino experience just never gets tired however is indeed the fact that with every new visit to the casino, even if it’s to the same casino you visit regularly, you are in with a chance of walking away a winner — that’s if you hit the gambling floors and place some bets.
Now get this — in some countries gambling is illegal, so you’d then not be able to find a casino to try your luck in. The thrill of taking a chance and having that chance give you some hope of winning something is a bit too strong for gambling to be completely outlawed even in those countries where gambling is officially illegal though, such as mainland China. You can take a boat ride to one of their territories, i.e. Macao and suddenly gambling is not so bad anymore that you can enjoy the thrill of the spin again.
It goes a bit further than that though as there are some theme parks which pretty much offer an indirect way of gambling. Basically you buy tokens and then you use those tokens to take a chance on some games which put you in line to win more tokens. At the end of all the fun you can exchange those tokens back for real money again!
