Hawaii, Vegas Style?
Travel Blog • Pam Mandel • 01.28.09 | 4:17 PM ET
Photo by With Hawaii’s tourism-driven economy taking such a big hit this season, all kinds of ideas are being thrown around to raise money for the island state. Legalized gambling is again on the table—only Hawaii and Utah do not have legalized gambling in the United States.
Charles Memminger—writing in the Star Bulletin —has another proposal: Export Hawaii to the mainland. Vegas, to be exact, and build a Hawaii-themed casino.
The point here—a point I’ve made before—is that Hawaii should get into the business of separating losers from their wallets, but we should take their money without them actually coming to Hawaii. The state of Hawaii should build its own government-owned casino in the only place where losers flock to be fleeced: Las Vegas. Why ruin the lives of Hawaii residents by allowing gambling in our state when we can make millions soaking the residents of Nevada?
Pull tabs behind the counter at the Hasegawa General Store or a massive faux Hawaii complex in the heart of the desert? I know that Memminger is being snarky and that the question isn’t that simple. Plus, the state of Hawaii is not in the business of running casinos. But I can also picture, with no effort, a Hawaii casino fully formed, the tiki-style script spelling out the name of the complex—Haleakala, maybe, one of the volcano names, or something evocative of an earlier Hawaii. Old Lahaina, maybe? I can see the painted greenery, the hula shows by girls who are much too skinny, the dealers in their matching Hawaiian shirts ...
I’m not a fan of Vegas artifice, but I can easily imagine my response to such an establishment. “Ooo! Hawaii!” I’d say, hurling myself out of the Vegas heat into an aggressively air-conditioned lobby the size of the entire island of Lana’i. “I’ll take a Mai Tai, please, extra umbrellas, thanks!”