Only in Vegas: The magic carpets designed to keep you awake and gambling



Las Vegas is well-known for being the city that never sleeps as gamblers are encouraged to spend their money around the clock.

Now a new set of photographs has revealed that even the garish carpets that line the hotels and casinos have an important part to play.

Garish designs: A paisley carpet at the Bellagio, in Las Vegas (pictured below), which makes tens of millions of pounds a year



Chris Maluszynski, 35,has spent four years snapping the kaleidoscopic designs after noticing them on a business trip. They include samples from the MGM Grand, Bellagio, Luxor and The Flamingo.



He said: 'Vegas is I feel the most surreal place in the world. In the middle of the desert you have this huge neon-lit metropolis, which is bizarre in itself.



'Everywhere you look when you are on The Strip or Downtown there are flashing lights to mesmerise you.



'I found myself trying to give my eyes a rest from the chaos by looking at the floor, but there is no respite even there.



'I noticed the carpets were as loud as everything else out there and I was really blown away by the detail and effort that had gone into them. They are like carpets you see nowhere else. Only in Vegas, as the saying goes.'

The outrageous carpets do nothing to distract gamblers at Las Vegas's most popular casinos

This floral carpet is one of many garish designs intended to keep casino regulars awake

The extreme carpets unleash an assault on the senses in a deliberate attempt to keep tourists wide awake.

This is compounded by the fact Vegas casinos and hotels don't have windows so that customers become confused about what time of day it is.

Dr David Schwartz from the Center for Gaming Research in Nevada said: 'Casino carpet is known as an exercise in deliberate bad taste that somehow encourages people to gamble.

'Many of the carpets use wheels - famous to the Romans as a symbol of the relentless capriciousness of fortune.



'Could it be a subtle reminders to casino patrons that life and luck are fleeting, and one should eat, drink, and be merry before the morrow brings a swing in fortune?'

The garish carpet (below) inside the Luxor Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, which is in the shape of an ancient Egyptian pyramid (above)





A traffic light-coloured carpet in a Las Vegas casino. Some bloggers have speculated greens and reds are used to make dropped chips harder to find

Bloggers have also speculated that the intricate patterns also help to conceal the red and green chips that gamblers may accidentally drop.

'It seems that every inch of everything out there has been designed to bombard your brain into staying awake,' Mr Maluszynski concluded.



'It's all about keeping you stimulated. Tourists spend money when they are not asleep.'

A wheel design from The Flamingo Las Vegas Hotel and Casino. Dr Schwartz believes wheel designs are used to remind punters of the ever turning wheel of fortune