Why Las Vegas Casinos Really Have So Few Clocks and Windows
Anyone who has spent time in a Las Vegas casino will probably have noticed that clocks are difficult to find, while many gaming floors receive very little natural light. The usual explanation is that casinos deliberately remove these reminders of the outside world so that players lose track of time and continue gambling.
The argument certainly seems to make sense. After all, even when playing online baccarat, it is easy to become absorbed in a game and lose track of time. However, according to veteran casino operator and designer Bill Friedman, this well-known explanation for the lack of clocks and windows in Vegas casinos is not quite right. He claims that the features were removed primarily because serious gamblers preferred playing without them.
Old Las Vegas Casinos Really Did Avoid Clocks and Sunlight
It is true that Las Vegas casinos from the middle decades of the 20th century were often deliberately designed with few windows and without prominent clocks.
Friedman has considerable experience in this area. He managed both the Castaways and Silver Slipper and later wrote Casino Management and Designing Casinos to Dominate the Competition. According to him, early Nevada casinos did originally have clocks. However, their biggest gamblers complained about them and threatened not to return unless they were removed.
The reason is not especially difficult to understand. Gambling was an escape, and some players did not want constant reminders that it was getting late or that they had other things to do. As Friedman put it: “They don’t want time. They are in a fantasy and an escape world.”
He encountered a similar problem with sunlight while running the Castaways during the 1970s. One side of the casino had large areas of glass, and Friedman claimed that when daylight appeared in the morning, between 85% and 90% of the customers on the gaming floor would leave. His solution was to cover the glass shortly before sunrise. According to Friedman, once gamblers could no longer see daylight arriving, the morning exodus stopped.
This meant that casinos were aware that clocks and sunlight could interrupt play. The distinction is in how the practice began. According to Friedman, casinos were simply responding to what their most valuable customers wanted rather than inventing a psychological trick to fool unsuspecting gamblers.
Modern Casino Design Has Moved in a Different Direction
For many years, Friedman advocated the maze approach to casino design. Gaming floors would have low ceilings, winding layouts and small areas where players could settle in around machines or tables. The games themselves were the main attraction, with very little decoration competing for attention. However, over the years, Las Vegas moved away from this style.
Steve Wynn and designer Roger Thomas took a very different approach when developing casinos including The Mirage, Bellagio and Wynn Las Vegas. They placed far more emphasis on attractive surroundings, artwork, comfortable spaces and, in some locations, natural light.
There is evidence that this was more than simply a matter of appearance. At Wynn, Thomas once redesigned an underperforming slot room by replacing its dark furnishings with brighter decorations and installing a wall of windows to enable natural light to reach the machines. The room was initially designed to attract older male players, while the redesign was intended to make it more appealing to women.
This is almost the exact opposite of the traditional idea that every casino wants to keep daylight as far away from gamblers as possible. Clocks are also rather less important today. Even when there is no clock on the casino wall, almost every player can check the time with ease on a phone or smartwatch. Therefore, simply hiding the clocks is unlikely to prevent anyone from knowing whether it is midnight or 5 a.m.
That Does Not Mean Casino Design Has No Effect
None of this means casinos are indifferent to how their surroundings affect players.
There has been extensive research into the way gambling environments and games can encourage prolonged play. Anthropologist Natasha Dow Schüll spent 15 years researching machine gambling in Las Vegas for her book Addiction by Design. Her work looks at what gamblers call the “machine zone”, a state in which someone becomes completely absorbed in continuous play and pays less attention to things going on around them.
Modern casinos also pay close attention to matters such as layout, lighting, sound, furniture and the placement of games. Friedman himself argued that casinos should minimize distractions that interfere with a gambler who is already concentrating on a game.
The old claim about clocks and windows in Vegas does contain some truth, but it is an oversimplification. Casinos really did remove these clocks and windows, and operators understood that reminders of time and daylight could cause people to stop playing. However, at least according to Friedman, the practice did not begin as a secret casino trick. It was a response to serious gamblers who wanted an environment where they could forget about the outside world.
Things are very different in modern Las Vegas. There are now casinos with plenty of natural sunlight, and nearly every player can easily check the time. Therefore, casinos must look for fresh strategies to keep players at the baccarat tables.
