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Vegas has institutionalized the myth of the frontier.
2) Gambling: national cultural and moral values
expressed: A) unearned money is justified, guilt-free, sign of success
B) the more money won the better: provides the illusion of getting
rich; many have to spend money for a very few to win "big"
-- similar to Hollywood movie stars
Vegas and gambling
· gambling started in the 1930s
· largest resort town in the US today
· 22.4 million people visited Vegas in 1993; only 5% bring
their
children
· 126,000 hotel rooms; Orlando for Disney World has only
79,000 rooms
· 90% hotel occupancy rates -- one of the highest in the
US
-- although it droped to 86% in 1998
· $2.4 billion from
conventioneers
· $4.2 billion from gamblers
· average gambler: 5 hrs a day gambling, spends $500
· one slot machine can make $250,000 profits per year
casino gambling
· first 2 states with casino gambling: NV and NJ, only in Atlantic
City
(1978)
· 6 other states have approved casino gambling by 1993
· another 15 states will approve casino gambling in 1994
· 57 casinos on Indian reservations in 12 states (1993)
| Gambling in the
U.S.
· in 1995, 177 million Americans watched baseball, football,
hockey
and
basketball;
· 154 million gambled in casinos; wagering $550 billion on all
forms
of gambling;
· with industry revenues of 44.4 billion -- 40% took place
in
casinos
· 10% of bettors account for 80% of all money wagered
· casino gambling has become the most popular leisure activity!
· casinos employ 367,000 workers, more than half in Las
Vegas
· see a graph of types of gambling
in the USA, by percentage
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Gambling has spread across the
US
· 30 states have state lotteries, first ones in 1963
· 99.9 percent are losers -- lower odds than with illegal
bookies
because 40% of state lotteries support hospitals and schools
· 30 states have horse track betting
· 15 states have dog race betting
3) famous entertainers in Las Vegas (1981
data)
· Jerry Lewis: $75,000 a week for s show a night
· Frank Sinatra: $50,000 for each 1-hour show
· Wayne Newton: $10 million/year for year-round performances
4) theme park hotels recently constructed in Las Vegas
- 1) $1 billion MGM Grand Hotel:
MGM lion as entrance;
33 acre theme park, Wizard of Oz, as big as the original Disneyland;
15,000 seat auditorium;
5,005 rooms; and
earns $20 million a night!
The hotel is booked until 1995; $750 million for upgrading its
facilities in 1998
- 2) $339 million Luxor (Circus Circus Enterprise):
Egyptian pyramid of black glass enclosing world's largest atrium
surrounded by 2,500 rooms
- 3) $475 million Treasure Island
· 18th century pirate village with galleons and lagoon
- 4) $1 billion Sheraton Hotel on the old Desert Inn site:
· 5,000 rooms
- 5) $1.8 billion Bellagio · 3,000 rooms, 8,600 staff
and 250
master chefs; with an art gallery worth $300 million in masterpieces
-- read about the art.
- 6) $760 million Paris (Hilton Group) · with replicas of the
Eiffel Tower and Arc de Triomphe
- 7) $2.25 million Sand's Venetian · 3,036 suites with a 1,200-foot
canal complete with serenading gondoliers, arched bridges, and a replica
of the Piazza San Marco
- 8) Rio Hotel is spending $200 million to upgrade its facilities
- 9) The Paris, which cost $750 million to build, has 2,000 slot machines and 100 gaming
tables spread out over 83,000-square-feet casino. It has cobblestone floors and street facades
and a quaint statue of a worker in overalls reposing on a bench with a lunch pail and thermos
outside a shop in perpetual twilight! It also has a two-acre swimming pool and 2,916 rooms.
[Source: Joann Wypijewski, "Light and Shadow in the City of Illusion," The Progressive,
28 February 2002, pp. 26-29.]
With the recent building activities, Las Vegas will have 126,000
rooms and the total investment in gambling firms will rise to $20 billion.
In 2002, Las Vegas had some 50 million visitors, who spent $650, losing close to $200
at casinos on average. Just two corporations own fourteen of the 15 casinos.
Read Sally Denton and Roger Morris, The Money and the Power -- a superb book on money
and power in Vegas.
Las Vegas has become a major convention
site
Gambling impact on Nevada's socio-economic characteristics
· gambling provides taxes: half of the state's total revenues
· 65% of all jobs, directly and indirectly, related to gambling
in state
· median family income: top ten of the US
· highest men to women ratio as heads of households, also AL and
HI
· 1 in 9 women between the ages of 15-39 are prostitutes
(estimated 10,000 in 1980s)
· alcoholism rate: highest in the US
· suicide rate: twice the US average
5) legalized prostitution: the Nevada experience
- women are registered as prostitutes
-- they are fingerprinted by police
- they can't leave brothel while working
-- they work 12 hour shifts for 3 weeks at a time
- then one week vacation and back to work
- they average 150-men each 3 weeks or 7 men per day (Mustang Ranch)
Prostitution, pornography, and sexism
A) prostitution, a feminist view (Susan Brownmiller)
- does not deter rape
- institutionalizes men's monetary right to women's bodies
- mass psychology of rape
- should be made illegal in Nevada and never legalized
B) legalizing prostitution, a ACLU view
- victimless crime, harmless (recreational) activity
- private agreement between consenting adults
- enforcement of prostitution laws:
- wasteful of law enforcement and courts
- 70% of prostitutes arrested are found guilty
- 10% only serve jail time; others are fined
- wasteful of public funds: $600-1,200 to bring one prostitute to jail
e.g. Seattle, WA spent $1 million for street-to-jail prosecution
C) legalizing prostitution
- COYOTE (Cast Off Your Old Tired Ethics), union of prostitutes
- advantages: reduces crime, increases disease control and, if taxed, increase state revenues
illegal U.S. prostitution (1980s)
- 200,000 - 250,000 prostitutes; 100,000 cited in one 2007 report
- full-time prostitutes earn $70,000 -- highest paid women (Gail Sheely)
- $10 billion/year industry
- only women are arrested, not men customers
- with illegal gambling: every one is arrested -- dealers and customers
Read about prostitution in Chicago
and in Ecuador; don't forget to read the article in your reading packet
on prostitution in San Diego.
pornography (Susan Brownmiller)
· distinctions: political and sexual freedom, sex education, ugly
smut
· buyers of pornography: white, middle-class, middle-aged, married
males
· women shown as virgins and nymphomaniacs (sexual stereotypes)
· male invention; dehumanize women, objects of sexual access
· staple of porn: naked women, breasts and genitals exposed
· anti-women propaganda
· anti-Jewish, anti-racial minority images are rejected by those
liberals
that argue
for pornography as sexual freedom
[Source: Susan Brownmiller, Prostitution, Pornography, and Women.]
Does pornography and prostitution reflect and/or cause sexism?
Here are three examples to think about.
1) one
Playboy centerfold
received $10,000 for her naked
body
but only $500 to write the story with the photos
2) LaGuardia
airport, NY: waitress uniforms and tips
- waitress received $500/week tips when they wore uniforms with ruffled
dance
leotards, stockings, high-heels, and push-up bras; later, uniforms were changed
to peasant-style knee-length dress and tips dropped!
3) NY
Times Square Sex Landscape:
- sex Mecca of the US
in the 1980s and early 1990s
- 23 adult bookstores
-- 15 X-rated movie houses (only about 750 in US)
- 28 message parlors (with sex service)
- 18 hotels with prostitutes in 1996
- In the late 1990s, Times Square was 'cleaned' up, including a new Disney
Store!
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