The Las Vegas known as the Strip more resembles Dubai than the romantic American myth that we’ve held on to in our imaginations.Īs you walk through the glitzy but anodyne corporate landscape of huge glass-fronted hotel skyscrapers and designer shopping malls that beckon you away from the street and into acres of hotel lobbies filled with singing, blinking gambling machines, you soon come to the Stratosphere tower that marks the beginning of the old downtown Vegas. The Strip was built by latter-day entrepreneurs, most of whom made their fortunes building property empires. Gameroom Show sells multi-slot machines, Watling. These rare antique slot machines are also known as one-armed bandits because they were originally operated by one lever on the side of the machine as opposed to a button on the front panel, and because of their ability to leave the gamer impoverished. But the old downtown “street of dreams” has for a long time struggled against its new big brash brother. Gameroom Show sells pre-1940s vintage slot machines in excellent, working condition. Here, working-class Americans come to gamble in a more accessible, relaxed atmosphere, where smoking is still allowedĭowntown Vegas was constructed by colourful chancers and legendary mobsters lured across the desert to try their luck at building fortunes, mainly through gambling, resulting in casinos like the Golden Nugget, Binions and the Four Queens. This is quite some contrast to the 3-reel, single line games back in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. Downtown Las Vegas’s renowned casinos include Binion’s, Golden Nugget, El Cortez, Four Queens and Fremont.
