. 2021 Jul 10;11(3-4):316–335. doi: 10.1007/s13162-021-00203-1

Table 2.

Spatio-market practices that made the American casino market

Spatio-market practices and the American casino market	Perceived (Spatial Practice)	Conceived (Representations of Space)	Lived (Representational Spaces)
Absolute	Investors encountering Las Vegas, the layout of buildings, connecting service infrastructures, where opportunities lie to develop land; Casino managers meeting customers and handlining technologies across bounded sites of exchange that have to be maintained; Customers confronting, inter alia, casino floors, hotel rooms, concert halls, restaurants technologies and other people	Hoteliers, including Thomas Hull, look for ‘space’ by treating Nevada as a container, made up of plots of land, which offer opportunities to invest and accrue capital (e.g., captured in land use planning maps and other topographic maps); Casino design theorists like Bill Friedman and designers treating casinos as bounded containers within which various market objects, technologies and opportunities can and need to be built and distributed (e.g., distilled in architectural design plans)	Investors’ feelings of security (or not) in reference to their investment in a plot of land; Managers’ fear (or not) concerning ‘outside’ competitors or changing regulations; Casino designers’ experiences of rooms and what they elicit; Customers’ sense of comfort (or not) in a casino or specific casino room (e.g., female experiences of discomfort in a ‘clubby’ and overtly masculine room)
Relative	Investors, managers and staff encountering flows of customers, goods and services across the casino floor, hotel and along wider supply chains that reach out beyond ‘the’ site; Customers seeing and being caught up in flows of people, goods, money and other objects moving across casino floors, around, in and out of hotel rooms and ‘the’ city	Careful investment decisions about the relative position of and distance between casino hotels in reference to major roads, train stations, airports, other service infrastructures (e.g., water, electricity), distribution centres, competitors and hubs of entertainment Project Gantt charts and topological maps, such as schematic diagrams linked with service networks; The purposeful placement of market objects (gambling tables, slot machines, chip exchange stations, bars, toilets, the ‘pit,’ hotels rooms, concert halls, staff, customers) relative to each other to produce the ‘right’ focal points, flows and speeds of production, exchange and consumption (e.g., distilled in fine grain casino floorplans and customer route planning guides)	Investor’s unease over distance and travel (i.e., how will suppliers, staff and customers get to a casino); Casino designer and managers’ frustrations over possible and real bottlenecks in supply and queues fettering exchange; Customers lived experiences getting to and navigating casino hotels, moving from place-to-place, and between sites of consumption
Relational	Practitioners’ sensations (sight, sound, taste and smell) stimulated through spatial encounters on the way to and in a casino resort (e.g., Designer and customer perceptions of a ‘too clubby’ male-oriented gambling room premised on atmospherics and design aesthetics; investor perceptions of seedy and disreputable sites)	Investors seeing plots of land as opportunities configured in reference to other market ‘objects’ (e.g., El Rancho’s viability was, as shown, measured in reference to the ‘car’) distilled in project planning documents and in, for example, business plans and applications for loans; Designers treating the casino floor as made up of meaningful and related objects (e.g., tables, slot machines, lighting and heating technologies) and associations which, in combination, help to produce the ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ emotions, desires and consumer behaviours (i.e., the ‘clubby’ room was a place that needed to be re-designed and populated by materials, lights, sounds and scents to make it more feminine). These are seen, for example, in ‘themed’ representations of casino floorplans and fine grain interior design proposals	Investors’ value-laden judgments about the ‘natural’ beauty of a location and the representative qualities of the casino’s design and the clientele it brings in; Designers’ sensitivities to the meaning and effects of market objects in particular contexts and what these, in combination, produce (e.g., aesthetic feelings associated with lighting, sound and scent in context); Customers’ experiences, sensitivities and emotional expectations (e.g., feelings of love, elation, thrill, joy and agony) as felt in relation to encountered or dreamt up market objects (e.g., symbolic ornaments, flowers, lights, carpets, slot machines, gambling tables) and contexts (e.g., casino ‘pits,’ themed hotel rooms, restaurants, bars, nightclubs and concert halls)

Spatio-market practices and the American casino market

Perceived
(Spatial Practice)

Conceived
(Representations of Space)

Lived
(Representational Spaces)

Absolute

Investors encountering Las Vegas, the layout of buildings, connecting service infrastructures, where opportunities lie to develop land;

Casino managers meeting customers and handlining technologies across bounded sites of exchange that have to be maintained;

Customers confronting, inter alia, casino floors, hotel rooms, concert halls, restaurants technologies and other people

Hoteliers, including Thomas Hull, look for ‘space’ by treating Nevada as a container, made up of plots of land, which offer opportunities to invest and accrue capital (e.g., captured in land use planning maps and other topographic maps);

Casino design theorists like Bill Friedman and designers treating casinos as bounded containers within which various market objects, technologies and opportunities can and need to be built and distributed (e.g., distilled in architectural design plans)

Investors’ feelings of security (or not) in reference to their investment in a plot of land;

Managers’ fear (or not) concerning ‘outside’ competitors or changing regulations;

Casino designers’ experiences of rooms and what they elicit;

Customers’ sense of comfort (or not) in a casino or specific casino room (e.g., female experiences of discomfort in a ‘clubby’ and overtly masculine room)

Relative

Investors, managers and staff encountering flows of customers, goods and services across the casino floor, hotel and along wider supply chains that reach out beyond ‘the’ site;

Customers seeing and being caught up in flows of people, goods, money and other objects moving across casino floors, around, in and out of hotel rooms and ‘the’ city

Careful investment decisions about the relative position of and distance between casino hotels in reference to major roads, train stations, airports, other service infrastructures (e.g., water, electricity), distribution centres, competitors and hubs of entertainment

Project Gantt charts and topological maps, such as schematic diagrams linked with service networks;

The purposeful placement of market objects (gambling tables, slot machines, chip exchange stations, bars, toilets, the ‘pit,’ hotels rooms, concert halls, staff, customers) relative to each other to produce the ‘right’ focal points, flows and speeds of production, exchange and consumption (e.g., distilled in fine grain casino floorplans and customer route planning guides)

Investor’s unease over distance and travel (i.e., how will suppliers, staff and customers get to a casino);

Casino designer and managers’ frustrations over possible and real bottlenecks in supply and queues fettering exchange;

Customers lived experiences getting to and navigating casino hotels, moving from place-to-place, and between sites of consumption

Relational

Practitioners’ sensations (sight, sound, taste and smell) stimulated through spatial encounters on the way to and in a casino resort (e.g., Designer and customer perceptions of a ‘too clubby’ male-oriented gambling room premised on atmospherics and design aesthetics; investor perceptions of seedy and disreputable sites)

Investors seeing plots of land as opportunities configured in reference to other market ‘objects’ (e.g., El Rancho’s viability was, as shown, measured in reference to the ‘car’) distilled in project planning documents and in, for example, business plans and applications for loans;

Designers treating the casino floor as made up of meaningful and related objects (e.g., tables, slot machines, lighting and heating technologies) and associations which, in combination, help to produce the ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ emotions, desires and consumer behaviours (i.e., the ‘clubby’ room was a place that needed to be re-designed and populated by materials, lights, sounds and scents to make it more feminine). These are seen, for example, in ‘themed’ representations of casino floorplans and fine grain interior design proposals

Investors’ value-laden judgments about the ‘natural’ beauty of a location and the representative qualities of the casino’s design and the clientele it brings in;

Designers’ sensitivities to the meaning and effects of market objects in particular contexts and what these, in combination, produce (e.g., aesthetic feelings associated with lighting, sound and scent in context);

Customers’ experiences, sensitivities and emotional expectations (e.g., feelings of love, elation, thrill, joy and agony) as felt in relation to encountered or dreamt up market objects (e.g., symbolic ornaments, flowers, lights, carpets, slot machines, gambling tables) and contexts (e.g., casino ‘pits,’ themed hotel rooms, restaurants, bars, nightclubs and concert halls)