You may find it strange to realise, but casinos aren’t only venues for hosting games. They have a lot of other uses in many instances. People can hire them out for events. They often feature stages and music halls for concerts to take place. What’s more, there are casinos that incorporate shops inside to visit. The idea behind these extra additions is to try and get people to also play games on the floor. Someone visiting a shop or attending a concert may take some time to play casino games, too. That is, of course, beneficial to the casino itself.
Yet there have also been some quite odd exhibitions taking place at casinos as well. The big venues are always hosting exhibits as a way of tempting people in and getting them to gamble. Some of these are quite normal and draw people in. Others can be of the most bizarre and quite strange fashion, though. Here, we’re going to take a closer look at the strangest exhibits to appear in casinos.
The Hull of the Titanic
People around the world know all about the story of the RMS Titanic. The British passenger liner sank in the North Atlantic Ocean in April 1912. After striking an iceberg on her maiden voyage from Southampton to New York, it sealed its fate. Of the 2,224 passengers and crew aboard, over 1,500 perished. That made it the deadliest sinking of a single ship to that time. It also became the inspiration for the disaster film genre. Speaking of which, James Cameron is well-known for his Titanic film, starring Leonardo Di Caprio and Kate Winslet. It went on to win 11 Oscars at the 70th Academy Awards. That included Best Picture and Best Director. It also set a new record for highest-grossing film up to that time in 1997.
The wreck of the ship lies at a depth of around 12,500 feet south-southeast of the coast of Newfoundland. The bow is still very recognisable, featuring many of its interiors in a preserved state. The stern is quite the opposite, having been completely ruined. It is from the wreck that large-scale exhibitions have been able to take place, though.
The first exhibition of recovered Titanic artefacts occurred at the National Maritime Museum. It was a very popular exhibition, drawing above 21,000 visitors every week between 1994 and 1995. As a result, RMS Titanic Inc. opted to tour the exhibit. Yet a large-scale permanent exhibition was also opened at the Luxor hotel and casino in Las Vegas. This remains in operation today, with visitors able to pay $32 for general admission. Audio guides are also available for an extra $5.
The exhibition incorporates over 250 authentic artefacts from the wreck. Extensive recreations of some of the ship’s most famous rooms are also present. It stands at 25,000-square-feet large. In its initial stages, visitors received a “boarding pass”. On it, the name of a passenger was present. This allowed them to find out the fate of their specific passenger at the end of the exhibition. It even won an award for The Best of Las Vegas in 2011 from the Las Vegas Review Journal. The piece of the hull in the exhibition did tour the world for several years, too.
The Hippodrome’s Digital Art
London’s Hippodrome is a venue that opened up in 1900. Located on the corner of Cranbourn Street and Charing Cross Road, Frank Matcham designed it for Moss Empires. It cost £250,000 to build, and its original use was for circus acts and variety shows. It then became a theatre in 1909, which it operated as until 1951. By 1958, it had received a makeover into a nightclub – The Talk of the Town. Many popular artists appeared there, including Diana Ross, Eartha Kitt, and Shirley Bassey. It ran in a successful way until 1982, when it closed amid falling attendance. Yet it only took one year for it to re-open, thanks to Peter Stringfellow. He turned it back into a nightclub and restaurant.
It would operate under different companies until 2006. This was when Charmaine Haig took over its lease. It became a theatre once more, with Haig managing and maintaining the venue alone at first. In 2009, the lease went to father and son entrepreneurs, Jimmy and Simon Thomas. They began restoring the Hippodrome to use it as a venue for casino gaming and entertainment. Investment in the building came to over £30 million, according to reports. The Thomas family raised this capital by selling several bingo halls.
Upon its re-opening in 2012, it hosted casino games aplenty. That’s something it maintains to this day, with four floors of gaming on offer. A Gold Room casino is also situated in the basement of the building. Yet when it re-opened, it featured an unusual art exhibition as part of its design. The main area of the casino floor incorporates a set of 57 panels with digital art on them. Created by the venue’s in house digital artist, Thomas D Gray, visitors can see the panels wherever they stand. A variety of other pieces of traditional art are also scattered throughout the venue. Yet the digital panels make for a different, and some say unique, experience.
The Hippodrome also includes The Matcham Room. This is its inbuilt theatre area, featuring 180 seats and a sort of cabaret setup. Performing there for some time now has been the Magic Mike Live London experience. Created and produced by Channing Tatum, the show offers a tantalising experience for all!
Bodies: The Exhibition
There are some people who enjoy visiting science museums. Often, you can see exhibits of humans and animals within those venues. Yet few people expect to be able to witness such an exhibit at a casino. True to form though, the Luxor hotel and casino offers one. Not content with displaying artefacts from the Titanic, it also includes Bodies: The Exhibition. Admission is $32 per person, although discounts are also available for some.
Within that exhibition, guests can see 13 whole-body specimens. More than 260 human organs and partial body specimens are also present. These are not models, either – they’re real human bodies! They have gone through meticulous dissection and preserved in an innovative way. At least, according to the exhibit, they have. Ticketholders can see the complexity of their own organs and body make-up this way. Up-close views of skeletons, muscles, respiratory systems and so on are viewable.
It’s also an opportunity to see what damage can occur to organs by over-eating, smoking, etc. Alongside a ticket to this exhibition, you get entry to the casino floor. Visitors to the exhibit have described it as being very interesting for the most part. Yet it also stands out as being quite gross and weird for others.
Immersive Van Gogh Exhibition in New Jersey
One of the more recent changes to a land-based casino occurred in Atlantic City. In the middle of 2022, the Hard Rock Casino announced a new “immersive experience”. This has the title of Beyond Van Gogh. Many people know of the Dutch Post-Impressionist painter. He became one of the most influential figures in Western art following his death in 1890. He was not successful on a commercial level throughout his career. As a result, he suffered with severe depression and poverty. In 1888, Van Gogh already suffered from ill-health due to smoking and drinking. Later on in the year, he severed his own ear off after hearing voices.
Van Gogh had no recollection of the event, having presented his ear to a 17-year-old cleaning girl at a brothel. He believed he had had a mental breakdown, and police ordered him into hospital care. In early 1889, Van Gogh spent time between home and hospital. Reports suggest he suffered from hallucinations and delusions of poisoning. He would enter himself into an asylum by mid-1889. Van Gogh never managed to pull himself out of the deluge that depression brought. At the age of 37, he shot himself with a 7mm revolver. Although this did not kill him, the resulting infection from the bullet did.
Of course, many artists are only respected for their work after their death. Van Gogh is a prime example of this, and over 300 of his works are present at the Hard Rock exhibition. Yet they are not present in physical format. Instead, the casino has reproduced them in a digital setup. The exhibit projects these onto the floors, walls and ceilings. Joe Lupo, the president of the casino, stated that venues need to appeal to a broader audience. He spoke of trying new and experimental things to gain new visitors.
Lupo said that the Van Gogh exhibit has been very successful in every major U.S. market. “Atlantic City needs to be looked at as one of those major markets”, he commented. The Hard Rock venue isn’t the only one to incorporate such an exhibition, though. The Bellagio in Vegas has also displayed artworks by big names. This includes Warhol, Monet, Picasso, and others. The Palms Casino Resort also does the same from time to time.
Yet the digital setup in Atlantic City brings a new way to experience it. It’s much more immersive, says Lupo.
A Casino Selling Casino Artefacts?
It’s not uncommon for casinos to feature shops within their establishments. Often times, you can buy memorabilia relating to the venue you’re visiting. Who hasn’t seen someone walking around with a Hard Rock piece of merchandise, for example?
In 2014, an altogether new variation of this occurred, though. A pair of gambling-related museum exhibits opened up. This coincided with the Casino Chip and Gaming Token Collectors Club holding a convention in Las Vegas. The exhibition took place at the South Point Hotel, Casino and Spa.
At the convention, visitors could attend different dealer tables. There, they were able to buy casino chips, tokens and silver strikes. It was also possible to sell their wares to others. At the same time, sellers had notable room keys, dice, playing cards, and even ashtrays from casinos. The two exhibits taking place at the same time included one on Jackie Gaughan. He was a casino owner and operator from the 1950s onwards in Las Vegas. That exhibit happened at the El Cortez Hotel and Casino.
The other exhibition surrounded the history of 20th century illegal gambling houses. Early chips and photographs from illegal venues were available to view at this one. The Mob Museum in Las Vegas was the host for the second exhibition. At least one of them wasn’t present in a land-based casino venue. Yet both were set up to coincide with the Casino Collectibles Convention of that year.