Casino Banal

This post is kindly contributed by Chris Kiddy (except for the bits I added).

The first of the two Singaporean casinos opened a couple of months ago and the next one is due to open shortly, although, according to the Today newspaper, it has not yet received its licence, just three days before the planned soft opening.

We visited the first of the casinos shortly after it opened, at Resorts World on the island of Sentosa.  It was actually our second visit, the first having occurred by accident when it was still being built and we took a wrong turning while heading for somewhere else on Sentosa and found ourselves in a vast, unlit, unsignposted cavern that turned out to be a huge underground car park for the resort.  This time, having parked in the now completed car park (much friendlier with lighting and signs, but still absolutely vast), we took a bus from our parking spot to the casino - yes really - and joined a heaving mass of people queuing to get in.  And I can't for the life of me work out why.

It was truly dreadful.  Of course, it was early days, and we haven't been back since, but the experience was definitely not so much Monte Carlo, more The Full Monty.  Once we'd braved the queues, we set out in search of a table - easier said than done.  There were, of course, tables, it was just that you couldn't get near them.  The punters were 3 or 4 deep at the tables that were open (many were closed) with a grimly determined look in their eye and no intention of creating a space for anyone else to join in.  The croupiers were still finding their feet and finding the going tough.  With what looked like fewer than half the tables open and the croupiers painfully slow as they struggled to prevent the gamblers from cheating, hardly anyone around the table was actually able to play.

The serried ranks of fruit machines were equally jealously guarded, not that I would have been tempted in any case - I'm a roulette girl.  So much, we thought, for our elegant evening out as we tootled off to have dinner.  Unfortunately, whereas the gambling area of the casino was absolutely heaving, the restaurants were virtually deserted and hence rather dismal.  We had a look at the hotels after dinner - a variety of offerings from the " plush ambiance and discreet exclusivity of Crockfords (an invitation-only, all-suite hotel, presumably for the serious gambler) to the "vibrant and cozy, yet contemporary and chic, Festive Hotel " not forgetting Hotel Michael, where the rooms are apparently like mini art galleries.

To be honest, the only thing we really enjoyed about the whole experience was the Dale Chihully gallery.  If you don't know his work, have a look at his website: http://www.chihuly.com/.  And so we left, after a couple of hours, weighed down by the unspent contents of our piggy banks.  How sad.  The only way I'd go back is if someone made me a member of Crockfords and I could hang out among the LBDs and tuxedos, sipping cold champagne out of long-stemmed crystal glasses and nibbling on caviar.  I've no idea whether that's what it's actually like, but I have my standards.