Magic shows with jugglers are aimed directly at children. But a sadness competing with decadence lurks in the casinos, where children are not allowed but baby strollers are. A pretty young woman, with a cigarette dangling from her mouth, wears a poker face drained of emotion but lined with stress. The elderly who get special package rates do not look like Granny or Pop-Pop when they're obsessed with striking it rich. One frail octogenarian with blue hair plays two of the one armed bandits simultaneously.
Pawn shops do a thriving business here.
But it's a free country, and everyone gets to choose the sins to carry into the millennium. Las Vegas is living proof that no one gets a round-trip ticket to the end of the rainbow. Happy New Year.