Dear All,
I am looking for elegant casinos around the globe. I have been to Las Vegas (for starters), but that definitely hasn't been a pleasurable experience. Coming from a family that doesn't really indulge in risking money, I most likely lack a lot of experience in that field. Nevertheless I am a connoisseur of good taste, and hence I turn to you.
Can you recommend me any visually appealing casinos, where one can breathe the old atmosphere? I intend to travel in February next year, anywhere in this world is fine.
Kind regards
Casinos
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Cufflink79
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Monte Carlo would be a nice place to visit.
As for the Casinos in London, England I hear they're very nice as well. But I don't know if you need to be a member of a club to get in.
Las Vegas is it's own place, and once upon a time people dressed up to visit there, but not anymore.
Best Regards,
Cufflink79
As for the Casinos in London, England I hear they're very nice as well. But I don't know if you need to be a member of a club to get in.
Las Vegas is it's own place, and once upon a time people dressed up to visit there, but not anymore.
Best Regards,
Cufflink79
I´m not going to be very original with my response.mrleiter wrote:Can you recommend me any visually appealing casinos, where one can breathe the old atmosphere?
Although I find the general environment of Monaco a bit asphyxiating, the grand Casino de Monte-Carlo is still the one that sets the standard when it comes to luxury and old world atmosphere. The Belle Époque halls and rooms (and even the chips you hold) are truly beautiful and if you go at night and pay a small fee to access the private rooms -and avoid the slot machines and the tourist crowd- you´ll get a taste of what you´re looking for. But do not expect to meet James Bond in black tie. Almost the only men wearing a dinner jacket nowadays are the croupiers. My personal recommendation is that if you ever go and want to wear your dinner suit, try to catch a performance next door at the opera house, the gorgeous Salle Garnier.
Also, as a second best, I have a nice recollection of a visit to the Baden-Baden casino in the early 90s. I don´t think it can have changed that much.
Things aren't what they were in the casino world. Flash has overtaken taste. But there are a few places that still do things well.
In London, Aspinall's in Curzon St. is probably the most elegant casino in the world today. Beautifully decorated, well run. The Clermont Club in Berkeley Square was the best years ago. Though it did become a bit down at the heels over the past several years (don't know what the new owners have done), the architecture is still magnificent. But it's not the place it was when John Aspinall had it. Crockford's is nice, but not especially elegant, not like it was in the old days in Carlton House Terrace. And Les Ambassadeurs has revamped with an eye to the modern and much for the worse, IMHO. The building is nice though - a former Rothschild townhouse - if you can see any of it between the red and purple crap all over the place. There are a lot of other casinos in London, from low roller joints to higher stakes clubs. None can be called elegant or especially distinctive.
Baden Baden is very nice, old world. Same for Deauville. Monte Carlo has a nice building but it has become nothing more than a tourist trap. The patrons are nothing like they used to be.
Las Vegas? I like Vegas but it's not an elegant town. It is a flashy, high dollar, expensive excess kind of town and that's not the same thing. Doesn't mean it's not enjoyable for what it is. Atlantic City is a lower rent, grimier version of Vegas.
In London, Aspinall's in Curzon St. is probably the most elegant casino in the world today. Beautifully decorated, well run. The Clermont Club in Berkeley Square was the best years ago. Though it did become a bit down at the heels over the past several years (don't know what the new owners have done), the architecture is still magnificent. But it's not the place it was when John Aspinall had it. Crockford's is nice, but not especially elegant, not like it was in the old days in Carlton House Terrace. And Les Ambassadeurs has revamped with an eye to the modern and much for the worse, IMHO. The building is nice though - a former Rothschild townhouse - if you can see any of it between the red and purple crap all over the place. There are a lot of other casinos in London, from low roller joints to higher stakes clubs. None can be called elegant or especially distinctive.
Baden Baden is very nice, old world. Same for Deauville. Monte Carlo has a nice building but it has become nothing more than a tourist trap. The patrons are nothing like they used to be.
Las Vegas? I like Vegas but it's not an elegant town. It is a flashy, high dollar, expensive excess kind of town and that's not the same thing. Doesn't mean it's not enjoyable for what it is. Atlantic City is a lower rent, grimier version of Vegas.
Thank you, very much appreciated. I will visit one or two when I am in London somewhere around April this year.The Rake wrote:Things aren't what they were in the casino world. Flash has overtaken taste. But there are a few places that still do things well.
In London, Aspinall's in Curzon St. is probably the most elegant casino in the world today. Beautifully decorated, well run. The Clermont Club in Berkeley Square was the best years ago. Though it did become a bit down at the heels over the past several years (don't know what the new owners have done), the architecture is still magnificent. But it's not the place it was when John Aspinall had it. Crockford's is nice, but not especially elegant, not like it was in the old days in Carlton House Terrace. And Les Ambassadeurs has revamped with an eye to the modern and much for the worse, IMHO. The building is nice though - a former Rothschild townhouse - if you can see any of it between the red and purple crap all over the place. There are a lot of other casinos in London, from low roller joints to higher stakes clubs. None can be called elegant or especially distinctive.
Baden Baden is very nice, old world. Same for Deauville. Monte Carlo has a nice building but it has become nothing more than a tourist trap. The patrons are nothing like they used to be.
Las Vegas? I like Vegas but it's not an elegant town. It is a flashy, high dollar, expensive excess kind of town and that's not the same thing. Doesn't mean it's not enjoyable for what it is. Atlantic City is a lower rent, grimier version of Vegas.
Do you intend to play any tables or concentrate on soaking up the atmosphere? If you do intend to place any bets then I would recommend blackjack as the game that, with only a modicum of research, can deliver the best results although without rather sophisticated playing techniques the odds are still in favour of the casino but not to the extent of most of the other games.
I am totally disinterested in gambling but whilst living and working in the USA I found myself attending a number of meetings and conferences in Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe where gambling in the casinos was the preferred evening pastime of my American colleagues. Prior to my first trip a friend lent me a book describing various strategies for improving one's odds when playing blackjack. The more complex strategies involve card counting and, if one is adept, are quite likely to get you thrown out of the casino. The most basic technique however involves memorising a simple grid of what face card the dealer is showing, what you have in your hand, and what action to take (hit, stand, double or split) for each turn depending upon the particular configuration of cards at that instant in time. I was surprised, simply by memorising this table, at how many hours I managed to stay in a game with only about a $20 initial stake. For most of the time I was doing sufficiently well that a rather attractive young lady to my right started asking me for advice on what to do on each hand.
The Wikipedia entry for blackjack (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackjack) contains some basic tables although from memory (and my experiences are from the late 1980s) I seem to remember that the tables that I committed to memory were less comprehensive than those listed in the Wikipedia article, they still afforded me many hours of play from an extremely modest initial stake however.
Have fun.
- Julian
I am totally disinterested in gambling but whilst living and working in the USA I found myself attending a number of meetings and conferences in Las Vegas and Lake Tahoe where gambling in the casinos was the preferred evening pastime of my American colleagues. Prior to my first trip a friend lent me a book describing various strategies for improving one's odds when playing blackjack. The more complex strategies involve card counting and, if one is adept, are quite likely to get you thrown out of the casino. The most basic technique however involves memorising a simple grid of what face card the dealer is showing, what you have in your hand, and what action to take (hit, stand, double or split) for each turn depending upon the particular configuration of cards at that instant in time. I was surprised, simply by memorising this table, at how many hours I managed to stay in a game with only about a $20 initial stake. For most of the time I was doing sufficiently well that a rather attractive young lady to my right started asking me for advice on what to do on each hand.
The Wikipedia entry for blackjack (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackjack) contains some basic tables although from memory (and my experiences are from the late 1980s) I seem to remember that the tables that I committed to memory were less comprehensive than those listed in the Wikipedia article, they still afforded me many hours of play from an extremely modest initial stake however.
Have fun.
- Julian
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