David Schwartz, professor of gaming studies at UNLV and author of Suburban Xanadu, has posted a section on his web site devoted to
photographs of casino carpets. For those who love casinos, the images
can be strangely evocative, since these are the magic carpets that
transport one to realms of hope and desire and degradation, silently
and largely unobserved. They are busy, silly, slightly insane — as
befits the places they adorn.


I have never consciously noticed the design of the carpet from the El
Cortez pictured above, but I know it subliminally — it brings back the
smells of stale cigarette smoke and beer and well-handled coins that
pervade the place, a place that always makes me sad . . . but in a good
way.


The mere image of the carpet almost brings a tear to my eye — and the very idea of a casino carpet gallery is just unspeakably cool.


Check it out here: