7 Worst Casinos In The World

There are far too many casinos in the world, indeed with the arrival of the superior gambling experience to be had online we should probably get rid of them. Here's some we can start with.

1. The Venetian – Macau, China

Basing your casino on a city on the other side of the planet that is a) sinking and b) less than fragrant at the best of times, is just a little gauche. In sheer terms of unoriginality it ranks right up there with Disneyland Paris (another contender for location most in need of a tactical nuclear detonation) and that history essay I copied off Dave in the fourth year at school. A monument to a ridiculous lack of taste this huge casino could very easily be bombarded from the sea by naval artillery until flattened. Indeed given the Chinese government's recent attitude toward Macau and gamblers in general I think you could probably get the People's Liberation Army Navy to assist in leveling the place, perhaps making it a useful test for their new aircraft carrier, a ship they bought from the Russians as a stripped hulk on the pretext of using it as a floating casino. Now refitted as a combat vessel there would be some poetic justice in having it's aircraft bomb the Venetian out of existence.

2. The MGM Grand – Las Vegas, USA

The MGM Bland sits like an oasis of dull in the Vegas lagoon of desperation and poorly thought out themed casinos. The architect obviously had other things to do the week he designed this slab-sided bore-fest and apparently spent a whole half an hour designing this tragically uninteresting edifice. It looks like he drew a lozenge shape, bent it in the middle, added another and then merely got Photoshop to form a 3D extrusion from that gambling news reporters wouldn't notice, and lo, Vegas has another ghastly blight on its skyline. Then they colored it green in what I can only assume was an attempt to make it look like a stack of money, but in the middle of a desert it looks out of place and ugly, with the tackiness of the interior just a minor blip by comparison. I'm not entirely sure how many demolition charges would be required to rid the world of the MGM Grand but some nine years after it was build I can think of nothing else that would improve it in quite the same manner as it being turned into rubble.

3. Foxwoods Resort Casino – Connecticut, USA

Looking like what might have happened if Walt Disney had been asked to design a concentration camp, this hideously squeezed building gives off an air of trying to fit too much into too little space with the upper portions rising above the surrounding forest in a manner that would make any environmentalist weep, the candy-box color scheme mocking the shifting shades of green in which it sits, almost begging for an invasion of militant bigfoot with sledgehammers. The Chernobyl disaster proved how quick nature can once again reassert itself over areas abandoned by humans and watching a time-lapse film of the forest slowly encroaching upon and then engulfing this horribly artificial anachronism would be a joy to behold. The towering hotels would collapse, the mall would become home to feral cats and the bigfoot would be able to swing back off into the forest knowing they had done mankind a favor it didn't deserve.

Casinos We Can Live Without • Should Foxwoods be left to natures grasp? • Can we nuke the Borgatta? • Does Monte Carlo need an inferno?

4. Tusk Rio Casino – Klerksdorp, South Africa

Designed by someone who had evidently experimented with hallucinogens whilst seriously depressed, this monstrosity has all the charm of a pre-schooler's nightmare and might well have allowed one to make adjustments to the blueprints before construction began. This is almost certainly what happened with the chosen rendering for the exterior that grates on the eyes like optical sandpaper due to its utterly disgusting color scheme which makes it the best ever argument for internet betting in the USinternet betting in the US. Stuck in the middle of nowhere the most notable feature of this moribund Rio-themed insult to carnival is the oversized carpark to which a few token trees have been added as if they could in any way make up for the sheer visual cancer this place is on the landscape. Naturally any plan for it's destruction would have to take account of the local environment although I do think a mushroom cloud would improve its overall aesthetic.

5. Casino Lisboa – Lisbon, Portugal

The only concession the Lisboa made to aesthetics was the roof garden which, frankly, wasn't good enough. The black glass and steel frontage makes this look like perhaps one of the laziest pieces of design yet achieved. Not just dull but ugly it makes the Vodaphone office building next door look interesting, and there's nothing interesting about Vodaphone's building in Lisbon. Even the Hotel Olissipo looks better, and that's just dire. No effort was made to make it an interesting place to look at or visit, the modernist materials not really making up for the lack of creative design work that even a five year old could have managed. It once again visually sums up just how desperately greedy casinos are, it's box-like shape designed to allow as many opportunities to fleece you of your money to be fitted in the relatively small footprint it occupies. Never has a building needed to be melted into a glassy puddle so much.

6. Borgata Hotel Casino & Spa – Atlantic City, USA

If you dropped a tactical nuclear weapon on the Borgata in Atlantic City you'd be able to hear Chris Christie cheering from as far away as Tulsa. It would, at a stroke, get rid of another rounded block-house casino that rises up as if powered by its own lack of flair, and erase the economic disaster that is blighting the fat man's run at the White House in 2016. It would be hard for opponents to use his stance on US gambling laws and Atlantic City's woes against him if it were an irradiated hole on the coast. Of course Christie would instantly done a Hazmat suit and stand on the glow-in-the-dark rubble to wring as much political capital out of the destruction as possible, so perhaps it might be better instead to simply drop Chris Christie on the Borgatta trusting that his vast size could combine with terminal velocity to create an unparalleled kinetic energy weapon that would completely remove this horrible casino from our poor benighted planet.

7. Casino de Monte Carlo – Monte Carlo, Monaco

This is the cherry on the anachronism cake, a symbol of the elitism that has driven our world towards the dystopian future we all now inhabit, this probably embodies the romantic mental image of a casino most people have where well dressed people gamble with suave sophistication, and James Bond absails the walls at whim. Of course the fact is this is a center of snooty-nosed snobbery with the entire exterior of the building representing a classic architectural style that flips an artistic bird at the poor. Obviously I would never condone arson, it releases too much pollution into the atmosphere, but there is something delightfully attractive about the idea of flames licking from its windows, the inferno sending flaming debris wafting down over the palm trees, torching tax-evader's cars and generally bringing about the wholesale destruction of this horrible, insulting, rich-prats palace of pleasure. It's absence from the world could only ever be a good thing.