Casino Carpets: Busy and Ugly for a Reason

I received an email last week from a regular reader of my Las Vegas articles that simply read, "Why are casino carpets so busy and ugly?" I began to laugh about this commonly asked question, and realized that there are multiple possible reason for the ugliness of casino carpets, but only two true reasons.

There have been many theories in the past as to why casino carpets are so busy and ugly. I have heard of every reason from, "carpet companies charge less for ugly carpet," to "the carpets are colored that way to make sure that you can't find casino chips on the floor." One of my favorite explanations as to why casino carpers are so busy and ugly is that there are subliminal messages in the carpet that encourage you to gamble more.

One of the real reasons why casino carpets are so busy and ugly is because then they will not show dirt and grime as much. If you look at the carpeting in a casino, you will realize that it is usually very dark in all of it's tones. This is good since casino carpets are usually only cleaned once a day, usually between 3am and 6am in the morning.

The main reason why it was once decided to make casino carpets so busy and ugly was to make sure that the patrons inside of the casino did not look at it. If you look up in the casino, you will usually also realize that the ceilings are usually pretty drab and ugly as well.

I know that this sounds a little strange, but think about it for a moment. If you owned a casino, would you want people looking around at the floor while they were in your casino? Would you want your patrons spending time looking at the ceiling? No, you want them looking straight ahead. You want your patrons looking around to see the games that are going to bring in all of you money.

The next time you are in a casino, point out what you know about why casino carpets are so busy and ugly to those traveling with you. They might be surprised by the insight that you learned here. Then take a look at the casino carpets in the different casinos to see which one you think is the ugliest. My least favorite is the carpet at MGM Grand in Las Vegas.