The Figure in the Rug

Recently, I toured South Coast (the new property in the Coast/Boyd empire), a $600 million casino resort opening on Las Vegas Boulevard some miles south of Mandalay Bay on December 22. Providing the tour was veteran Coast marketing director, Tom Mikovits, and I used the opportunity to ask him something I have always wondered about. Why do casino floors have such loud and busy carpets? The prevailing theory I have always heard has the flavor of an urban myth: the ugly carpet is to make customers look up from it in order to keep their eyes focused on the slot machines. But Mikovits offered a more logical and obvious answer: foot traffic. "The primary consideration in making the carpets look as they do at casinos is because of the heavy foot traffic. There are about 20,000 people giving foot traffic to a carpet each day and we try to make it so it has a longer life." Even so, according to Mikovits, casino rugs tend to be replaced every couple months because of the wear.