ABSTRACT
In his one book about Las Vegas, Diamonds Are Forever (1956), Ian Fleming includes a paragraph on the vicissitudes of casino architecture, which he describes as “The Gilded Mousetrap School”
since once you tried to reach your objective—buy a paper … at the news stand, have a drink or a meal in one of the … restaurants … there was no way of reaching your objective without passing between the banks of slot machines and gambling tables. And when you were trapped in the vortex of the whirring machines, amongst which there sounded always, from somewhere, the intoxicating silvery cascade of coins into a metal cup … you were lost.
