Super Casino: Inside the "New" Las Vegas

This time around, we bring you a book you can skim through while you're sitting by the pool, or hanging out at the beach. Or, since its the middle of November, maybe you can read it while looking at a picture of the beach.
Super Casino: Inside the "New" Las Vegas is the kind of book that entertains while it educates. Its a look at Vegas and its inner workings, as well as all of its players. It has an excellent history of the the town, with all its grit and glory, and without centering on the mob, it explains how things got to be the way they are today in Vegas. It doesnt get overly dramatic with its character stories, but they are there, and they add a nice level of depth to the history lesson you are already getting. All in all, this is a book for anyone interested in Vegas. Operators, Players, Vacationers, and anyone who is just looking for a light read while passing the time.

Here's what Publishers Weekly has to say:

For a portrait of razzle-dazzle Las Vegas, this is a curiously sober book. Earley, an Edgar and Robert F. Kennedy Award winner (Circumstantial Evidence), gained the cooperation of Circus Circus Enterprises, owners of the new pyramid-shaped Luxor super casino, to write an awkward hybrid of a work: part business history, part vignettes of life in Las Vegas. The first segment, more than one third of the book, tells the history of Circus Circus. It's a solid account of the rise of corporate casinos by Earley, a former Wall Street Journal reporter, but as Vegas tales go, there's nothing hugely dramatic in the Circus Circus story. The book's sprightlier but diffuse second part describes episodes inside the Luxor and the individual characters who populate it: a casino boss, a showgirl, a security guard, etc. Earley showcases some unflattering scenes, such as a security guard's beating of a homeless man, and picks up some only-in-Vegas anecdotes, like the many ways casino dealers have tried to hide stolen chips (e.g., in a brassiere). But only one of these characters is compelling: a young prostitute who opens up to the author to a remarkable degree; surviving the Las Vegas jungle, she trains as a blackjack dealer and ultimately leaves town. Earley does not comment directly on the broader moral issues of gambling: halfway through the book, he quotes a cabbie who says the city is based on greed, but near the end, he cites a Luxor manager who asserts that it's a place "where people come to forget their problems."

So pick up a copy, and when Turkey Dat rolls around, and you're so full turkey and stuffing that you have that warm, drowzy feeling overtake you, you can curl up with this book in front of the fire, and transport yourself to good ole' Las Legas.

November 16, 2006

Super Casino: Inside the "New" Las Vegas