Casinos have no shortage of curious things about them. Every bathroom, for example, has a sharps disposal.
But perhaps the oddest thing I discovered during my recent Niagara odyssey is the unashamed abundance of racist slot machines.
It’s not hard to see why slots themed after television and movie properties might make good business sense. It’s also easy to grasp the potential appeal of machines adorned with kitties and mermaids and pirates.
It is more of a mystery, however, as to what research or focus groups may have led to the conclusion that people are more likely to pump money into slot machines that are splashed with crude ethnic caricatures and/or exotic stereotypes.
Here are just a handful of the racially-insensitive games to be found at the government-run Fallsview Casino Resort.
