">HomeOwnerNut

I think I threw up in my mouth.  Las Vegas casinos have the world’s ugliest carpets. Rounding up photos of them and researching why casinos choose them can become a compulsive habit. It has been for David G. Schwartz, who claims in his biography to be “the youngest Ph.D. in recent memory from UCLA’s history department” and who has published a book on the evolution of the casino industry on the Las Vegas Strip.

In fact, Schwartz has been called “gaming’s leading historian” by Global Gaming Business magazine. The casino carpet gallery at his Die Is Cast website  makes you reach for the barf bag.

Ugly rugs to die for

Photo by Die Is Cast

The Die is Cast image of the carpet at the Vegas Strip makes the blood rush to your feet and causes hundred-dollar bills to tumble from your pockets.

Flooring goes for broke

Photo by Die Is Cast

Schwartz, currently Director of the Center for Gaming Research at the University of  Nevada Las Vegas,  claims that “casino carpet is known as an exercise in deliberate bad taste that  somehow encourages people to gamble.” Prime example: This carpet from the Bellagio. Read more about his research at U.S. Floors Direct (bottom of the page).

Ugly is the new ugly

Photo by Die is Cast on Hotel Chatter

The folks at Hotel Chatter have termed the casino trend as “Fugly Hotel Carpeting” and claims that hotels deliberately install “bewildering, dizzying, headache-inducing and downright scary carpeting in their public spaces (and sometimes in the rooms!) so as to distract guests from stains, spills and unsavory remnants of accidents, bodily or otherwise.

Get some help!

Yes, there’s even a Facebook support group page today for people who are smitten by ugly hotel rugs and carpets. Need to vent, or simply need to know you’re not alone, check out Facebook.