The Reno visit was sort of disenchanting. The last time I was in a Nevada casino was several years ago and it was in Vegas. Reno has the neon and game machines from Vegas, but not a lot of the fun. The streets have more panhandlers than I'd remembered, the casinos are crowded with dour-faced retirees sitting singly, smoking and pushing buttons. And no one used coins anymore -- all the machines seem to just dispense tickets with a bar code redeemable for money elsewhere. For me much of the fun of the gaming machines is in the tactile manipulation of the coins. Taking that away makes the experience just too much like clicking with the mouse and giving up a few dollars every minute. While sitting in a room with stale air and bad carpetting.
Strangely enough this experience makes me want to go to Vegas all the more. I hear that they're using tickets rather than coins now, too, but at least there's more fun things to do in Vegas than in Reno.
(Click the image to view a larger version.)