I had been to the Desert Inn a number of times in the late 1980's/early 1990's. I don't have any specific memories of it, though. The year it closed, I was in Las Vegas with my wife. We had reservations for a nice restaurant in the DI. We got there, all decked out for dinner, and there was NO ONE in the place. There were 2 customers in the entire casino and about 6 dealers scattered about. That was it. It was eerie. We talked with two of the dealers, one who only had one hand, and they told us the casino was closing in three days. We had no idea. We sat to play a few hands of blackjack as a goodbye to the casino. I lost every hand. I asked if I could get a $1 chip as a souvenir, since I didn't see any on the tables. He told me "They bought them all." I had no idea who he meant (now I do ). So, I kept a $5 chip and tipped the dealer well (he was about to lose his job, and was obviously sad about the casino closing). I asked if I was allowed to take pictures of the casino. He said, "No, but no one will stop you." I asked him, "So, I can take some pictures?" He replied, "No one will stop you." So, I took 3 pictures. They didn't come out too well, but you can see them on Mike Poole's great casino picture pages (they are not on this computer or I would post them). We went up to see the restaurant and no one was there (only the staff). We turned around and went somewhere else. It was all just too sad. It took about half an hour to shake the feeling of sadness before we could go to another restaurant.

Here's my chip:

Michael Siskin