24
Popular Culture Review
slots include bars that serve alcoholic drinks to patrons who watch sports on
screens and play video poker. Additional sections of the floor are set aside for
sports betting, poker, and keno. Many Las Vegas casinos also have VIP areas
roped off for higher stakes gambling. These areas are often semi-formal (dealers
wear tuxedos) venues set up with a few baccarat tables. However, it is generally
believed that the real high stakes gambling takes place in rooms that are more
private and out of view of the public.
The Macau casino floors are very different. Asian gamblers are
primarily card players. The game of choice in Macau is baccarat. While
blackjack and other games are also found, baccarat is clearly the most popular.
The floor is a sea of card tables, with small spaces devoted to video/slot
machines (see Table 1). The slots are often found on the periphery of the floor,
against the walls and in hallways. While the smallest casinos in Las Vegas offer
numerous slots but few table games, the smallest casinos in Macau feature table
games and few if any slots. In a recent visit to Macau, the authors found the
tables crammed with customers, but the slots were lightly utilized.
Like the Sands Macau, the new American-sponsored casinos will offer
many more slot machines than are found in the traditional Macau casinos. The
Wynn Macau will offer 850 machines on it