I absolutely love Vegas for that very reason.

It’s not like I’ve been there that often (maybe three time) but from the moment I first set foot in it and saw just how cheap it is … how unlike it is portrayed in the movies … and how, in no time at all, I’d walk past a slot machine promising a $64,000,000 jackpot and think “Is that all? That’s not worth a dollar; I’ll go further in … where the real money is”

… I was utterly mesmerised by the juxtoposition of inconceivable wealth and outrageously cheap fixtures and fittings.

The place is a mindbending combination of truly obscene wealth and the utterly banal.

My only question is whether anyone is taken in by it or whether, like me, they think to themselves “Who cares? I could walk out of here a multimillionaire and live in whatever genuine luxury I want afterwards.”

It’s a fascinating place — I could watch it and its population for days … all while drinking a yard of margarita for breakfast, riding an indoor roller-coaster through the hotel.

If you go there expecting it to be what it is (cheap and tacky) rather than what it’s made out to be (luxurious and glamorous), it can be a serious experience.