Ugly carpets are the results of extensive market research,” claims a website called gamblingsites.org. “Tacky carpets with weird lines and curvy patterns actually keep players awake and focused on what they’re doing.”
The reason there are so many casino myths ripe for this series to bust — other than the general lack of casino website fact-checkers — is simple psychology. Every gambler knows that every casino game is designed to take more money from them, on average, than it gives them. So the brain likes to invent “methods” to outsmart this “trickery,” which tends to extrapolate to every detail of the casino experience.
One of the first Vegas myths busted by this series was that casinos pump in extra oxygen.
Wait, we’re not even finished with all the casino carpet theories yet…
The carpet is intended to disorient you and make it harder to find the exits,” claims Reddit user LordPraetorian in the r/LasVegas subreddit.
“The busy designs on the carpet are to draw your eyes upward, and the relatively tame ceilings are to draw your eyes downward,” Redditor oftcenter disagrees. “These two tactics work in combination to keep your attention in front of you and focused on the gaming amenities.”
“These myths are all absurd,” says Scott Roeben of Casino.org’s very own Vital Vegas blog. “It has never occurred to any casino manager, operations person, or owner I’ve ever spoken with to make an ugly carpet so that people will stay awake, or be disoriented, or look up instead of down.”
The Dirt
Casino carpets are busy because busy designs hide stains and wear and tear, period. They’re cleaned frequently, often more than once a day. But it’s impossible to keep up. And because margins are important to public companies, some put off replacing carpets for as many years as possible.
Casinos are different than most other businesses because thousands of customers constantly stream through them, every day, and almost all of them are carrying drinks,” Roeben says. “The spills are more frequent and often more colorful. Slushy drinks come in a variety of colors.