Into the den of decadence

It is cliche but it has the advantage of also being true. What is happening in Las Vegas does have to be seen to be believed, as first-time visitor Financial Secretary Donald Tsang Yam-kuen discovered this week. If the Vegas strip is the most profoundly decadent real estate anywhere, then Mr Tsang was at its dizzying core on Tuesday night. He stood at the picture windows of an upscale Cantonese restaurant on the edge of the Bellagio, a new 3,000-room hotel styled on a lush Tuscan mansion. In front of him, a robotic fountain created a dance of spray set to an opera across an eight-acre lake - an attempt to lure eyes from the Eiffel Tower of the Paris, one of a dozen or so giant rivals across the strip. Behind him through the open doors of the court-like restaurant, Frank Sinatra's Summer Wind boomed down from the ceiling across a lobby filled with Venetian glass that leads to a gallery in which hang works by Cezanne, Van Gogh and Monet. All in the Nevada desert. On a trip to examine what lessons can be applied to Hong Kong's stuttering tourism industry, Mr Tsang repeatedly spoke of the mesmerising qualities of the Vegas boom. 'I'm a first time visitor in Las Vegas . . . you can smell it, you can feel it,' Mr Tsang said, ending with a superlative he used repeatedly. 'It is very overwhelming'. 'It is impressive . . . a city with only slightly over one million people but they are able to manage over 30 million or so visitors each year with some 130,000 hotel rooms. We can learn a lot. They are practical here, money-making.' Officials and hoteliers in Las Vegas talk the same language when speaking of their ringing, 24-hour-a-day resorts. They speak of millions of metres of new retail and convention space, of a heady competition to attract the world's top chefs, of the latest rumours about a new development even more bizarre than any on the strip already. Arrivals and revenues are soaring, they claim, happily ignoring the warnings from Wall Street analysts that returns must diminish sometime, that mega-resorts just cannot keep on being built to pull in the custom. Every new resort is more 'creative', opulent, spacious, over-staffed - some employ more than 10,000 people - and solidly patronised than the next. Nothing, it seems, is beyond imagination or exaggeration - or budget. 'Suites for New Year? Forget it. The few that are left are now worth US$5,000 [$39,000] a shot,' one manager said. 'We're total entertainment now. This is the new Vegas. We'll even be running Broadway shows full-length,' another said. 'We are Culture . . . and we've got both Elton John and Rod Stewart for midnight December 31.' Vegas stands as an apt metaphor for the wider boom in the American economy. With between 4,000 and 6,000 people moving monthly to take advantage of endless sunshine and jobs, the city is the fastest growing in the United States. It has more than trebled its size since 1976, a time when Mob control was finally ebbing in favour of the publicly listed gaming corporations that dominate today. More than 30,000 new hotel rooms have been added over the past three years with the building of its biggest hotels yet. Occupancy is still in the high 80s. Invested capital has risen in that time from an estimated US$11 billion to US$20 billion - all in a city surrounded entirely by a desert, a city created entirely for its own sake. For underlying everything that happens there is still gambling - a fact driven home to Mr Tsang this week, but one he has been reluctant to publicly acknowledge. While they like to talk the vocabulary of 're-invention', Las Vegas characters from hotel managers to lowly cashiers know that the revenue generated by people losing their money at the city's tables is still vital to the city's success. 'Frankly, it is hard to imagine any of this happening without gambling,' said Phil Cooper, vice-president for advertising of Caesar's Palace, as he escorted Mr Tsang through a top-end shopping mall. 'There is something for everyone in Vegas now. You want to eat? There are fine restaurants? You want to shop? Again, we have the best. And of course you can gamble, people should never forget that. Vegas will always be Vegas in that regard.' Even in the supposedly most sophisticated of the new hotels, you find yourself diverted to some gaming site or another while trying to get one of the new hyped attractions. There is little discrete or subtle about even the classiest hotel. They are all noisy, smoky and filled with people a little tired and emotional after a hard night's gambling fuelled by 'free' drinks. They still offer 'credit' in the form of chips to the cash-strapped. Auto-bank machines line the walls. Hulking security guards are never far away and seem unafraid to eject anyone even slightly unruly. Resorts they may be, but there is something definitely adult about them. It was not the artwork on people's lips on Monday morning, but the upset welter-weight boxing title win by Felix Trinidad on Saturday - a victory that paid handsomely in the sports betting dens. Even in the outlandishly opulent Bellagio, the interior is dominated by a 100,000 square foot gaming hall. And while elegant black-jack, roulette and baccarat rooms staffed by black-tied dealers can be found, the action is dominated by the walls of the utterly inhuman video poker machine. Sit down for a coffee, and you find them on the bar-top, ready to be fed dollar notes. You can find them in late-night convenience stores, bars and even service stations. Cheap to maintain, highly addictive and carrying a hefty 'edge' in odds in favour of the casino, naturally, the machines are now a mainstay. The power and role of video poker was mentioned in a recent study by the respected National Gambling Study Commission, an official agency that reports directly to the White House. Its report called for a pause in the spread of gambling, but was generally mixed in its conclusions, singling out extensive economic benefits from 'destination gambling', such as that offered in Las Vegas. It did warn however that three million Americans suffered from severe gambling addiction - a problem particularly acute in the poor and young - and singled out 'convenience gambling', such as video poker in truck stops, as a root cause of social problems. 'For all the razzamatazz, 70 per cent of the drop in most big hotels comes from the video poker machines,' said one seasoned 'pit boss' keeping an eye on some black-jack tables. 'We are the sideshows now. Life in modern Las Vegas is unthinkable without them.' Despite losing its monopoly on the vice years ago - 47 states and the District of Columbia now have forms of legal gambling, a fact which has in part driven the 're-invention' - Las Vegas remains mecca for the American punter. Standards and range of gambling options are considered greater there than anywhere else. It is, for example, still the home of a resident band of 3,000-odd poker professionals. Shopping and dining income is increasing proportionally, but 'gross gaming revenue' - the amount people lose - rose 11 per cent to US$6.1 billion last year. A similar rise is expected this year. That is about a quarter of Las Vegas' total yearly income, a fair chunk of it coming in from less salubrious quarters. Never far from the glitter of the strip, the older gambling dens downtown have the shabbier feel of Macau's casinos. Not only do the 'Steak and Eggs - $1.69 all night' signs still hang, but the diners they advertise still do a solid trade. So do the strip-clubs, pawn-shops, loan sharks and street hustlers. A Van Gogh's masterpiece may be hanging in the Bellagio, but it is a fair bet the artist himself would have preferred the shaded recesses of Binion's Horseshoe. Wandering these far more empty quarters, one is reminded that Las Vegas has the highest suicide rate of any urban centre in America. If the strip of Vegas is mini-Manhattan, Egyptian pyramids and a Statue of Liberty in the middle of a roller-coaster, then downtown is dead-end motels, trailer-parks and cookie-cutter suburbs backing suddenly into the all-pervasive Nevada desert. Standing out front of the giant Las Vegas convention centre, Mr Tsang spoke of the tough social and political consequences Hong Kong must consider if the Government is to approve casino gambling. He did not visit the more rough-hewn corners of the city in early hours or linger in any gaming room. One of his staff said he understood the problems. 'Like everyone in Hong Kong, he has been to Macau,' one source said. 'And he doesn't want that.' 0 100 100 30 0 40 40 10 As our Financial Secretary recovers from the 'overwhelming' experience that is Vegas, Greg Torode finds this gaming giant is a winner that feeds on losers