The Las Vegas of East

16.8.2010 | Day 16 | 11 533 km | Macau, China

On second thought, let’s not go to Macau. It is a silly place. Well, maybe not as silly as Camelot in Monty Python, but the small country (or what ever it is) of gambling is a very strange place. As we had been into Las Vegas and thoroughly enjoyed the 100% fun they offer, we were very disappointed how Macau casinos work.

First of all, no drinking while gambling! At Vegas casinos, waitress bring you free alcohol drinks for a $1 tip. In Macau, you are not even allowed to drink at the slots or at the tables, only at the small bar areas. And well, nobody was drinking. Also, I was thinking of gambling a bit in some poker tables, but surprisingly there were none. It was all about Baccarat and other strange dice table games what locals were playing 24/7/365. We did find couple of places to play very cheap two Hong Kong cent lucky-7’s (0,002 Eur bet per line), which we did play a lot. And obviously lost, but that was expected :)

The Venetian in Macau is the world's largest casino

The most fun we had when we found a greyhound race track. Sadly it was Monday, probably the slowest day for races, but it was massive fun to first look at the dogs and decide which to bet, of course reading the odds as well. And you actually could drink beers while gambling as well! But not to our surprise, we were the only ones drinking…

In the end, we left Macau disappointed. Comparing Macau and Las Vegas depends pretty much only about are you a Westerner or an Easterner. Better to stick the one “closer” to you, as the games and the atmosphere we enjoy is in Vegas. But for the Chinese people, going to Macau is the better choice.