Looking at Casino Through an Aesthetic Lens

Over the last 100 years, casino has undoubtedly come a very long way, but while the technology may have completely changed, the story of casino design is a far less clear progression. Today we’re looking at the images and designs of casino across the years and what are the most iconic elements.

Classic Casino

While casinos started out in very different forms across the world, the Las Vegas image is undoubtedly the most famous out of all of them. Vegas casinos of the 50s, 60s, and 70s had an artistic style all of their own, regardless of the theme any individual casino had. Whether it was the Roman Caesar’s Palace or woven into the Moroccan feel of the Sahara, certain features were universal.

In terms of decoration, neon lights were, and still are to some extent, a core part of the overall Vegas design, which tended to always be in the most extravagant form possible. The aesthetic was essentially a sensory bombardment with sights, sounds, and fashions, all leaning into the feeling of opulent celebration. Several of these features have survived into modern styles, although recently, casinos have been taking a different approach.

Modern Casino

While Vegas as a whole loves to call back to the era of the Rat Pack, the casinos themselves have been caught in the middle of two opposing forces: nostalgia and modernity. If you look at the main casino floor of a giant resort like the Wynn Las Vegas, the decor calls back to an older era. Between the patterned floors and brightly-colored furniture, there is a distinct 70’s and 80’s flare to the design.

On the other hand, the games on offer, such as the slots and big wheel games, are decidedly more modern, most of them having moved over to digital rather than mechanical operation.

The result is a unique combination of the new and the old, where technology is nested in retro environments. While different resorts naturally still lean into different themes, the contrast is common across many of them.

Digital Casino

As casino businesses have started to go online, it has become fascinating to see what elements of traditional casino design have been taken with them. The most common of these features is the tendency towards big, bold fonts and colors in the Vegas style, whether that’s in sites using big themes like Ancient Egypt or Ireland, or sites drawing directly from Vegas themes.

This is without mentioning the slot games themselves, with many slots using Vegas as a theme, and most of the biggest jackpot slots like Mega Moolah operating on the same global jackpot system pioneered on Vegas casino floors. In Vegas, slot machines are often linked together to generate a shared jackpot across the casino, and replicating this design feature online helps generate some of the same community feeling.

In the end, casino design boils down to this balance of the modern and the traditional in a way not found in many other industries. There is no question that even in another 100 years, the neon, the patterns, and the community feel will remain a huge part of the casino experience.

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