Casinos Themes: From Ancient Egypt to Futuristic Worlds

Finding a winning combination is challenging, whether opening a cafe in your local high street, a multi-million-dollar entertainment hub, or a casino resort. The issues remain the same: What can I do to attract customers? The answer (after a fortune spent on market research) is to offer a new experience, a different way to attract new clients and keep the familiar faces returning. Welcome the birth of casino themes.

For these reasons, entertainment hubs like land-based casinos go all out to offer new and exciting experiences, and making the most of these experiences is transformative for many customers.

They raise the bar for designers each time a successful new concept is rolled out, often making the next conception even more ambitious. When the sky’s the limit for creative types, where does it end? More lights, bigger venues, larger payouts, or is it back to basics? Let’s review where the entertainment world is going and why it matters.

Casino Themes Now and Then

We must look at a potted casino design history to understand why casinos adopted themes. If you scroll back a few decades to the crazy days of the 1970s, places like Las Vegas had offered entertainment in one form or another since Nevada legalised casino gambling in 1931.

Back then, not much thought went into design until Bill Friedman, a casino expert, implemented his theory to the casino world (documented in his book, Designing Casinos to Dominate the Competition). Friedman’s theory was that design is secondary; slot machines and easy table access are key to a successful venue.

You can understand why this design theory was rolled out through Vegas, but like everything in the entertainment industry, concepts get old and tired and stop working after a while. At this point in the early 2000s, Roger Thomas introduced the ‘playground’ design concept to match the shift in gaming needs, which likely was influenced by the early presence of online casino play.

Subtlety was emerging, and less in your face gambling and more strategic themes began to enter the scene. Entertainment, retail and an immersive experience is now the name of the game.

Casino Themes Timeline

1989-1998 Friedmanesque Transitional Themes

• 1989: The Mirage (LV) opened with a bang, featuring a tropical theme with an erupting volcano as the central focal point. This marked the beginning of changing design patterns.
• 1993: Luxor (LV) became the first ‘themed’ casino. Featuring ancient Egypt and Tutankhamun.
• 1993: Treasure Island (LV), sitting right on the strip, the casino had a sinking galion, pirates on the forecourt and a tropical theme with lots of stuffed parrots inside
• 1996: Paris Las Vegas opened, offering Americans who have not visited Europe a chance to see the Eiffel Tower ( a replica obviously) and enjoy the US version of cafe society.

1998-2008 Introducing The Playground Theme

• 1998: The Bellagio (LV) brought a refined, art-focused and luxurious theme to the gaming world, focusing more on entertainment and completely changing the look and feel of gaming in Nevada.
• 1998: The Venetian (LV) created a similar vibe but with a distinctly Italian theme and a canal system. Taking customers through the venue, encouraging visitors who might consider gambling secondary to their experience.

2000s-2025 Taking the Theme and Run

• 2002: The Venetian Macao (China) took the success of The Venetian LV and ran with the theme through Asia.
• 2005: Wynn (LV) was a turning point, away from obvious themes and back to luxury and an emphasis on exceptional customer services.
• 2008: The Palm (Dubai) brought luxury on a large scale to the Middle East, providing gambling and entertainment to a region not known for casinos.
• 2021: Resort World (LV) moves away from obvious themes to focus on choice. It is a massive operation that focuses on the resort experience, aiming to keep clients in one place, a captive audience that never needs to leave.
• 2023: The MGM upgrade to The Sphere (LV) brings modern luxury and convenience with a foot in the future of gaming, the epitome of the evolution of the obvious theme to a fully immersive environment complete with a light show you can see from space.

It’s a human emotion to want to try new experiences, which is why when a concept has run its course or a fashion has played out and then begins to look old, designers change tact and nothing shouts change needed more than the introduction of online gaming and casino play in 1994, while casino designers didn’t notice the knock on effect until the early 2000s, many new establishments understood the impact online play would have in the world of Casinos.

Futuristic Play for Modern Times

The combination of tech advancements (Microgaming and CryptoLogic) and changes in gambling legislation provided a launch pad for virtual casinos to take the reins and run with it, offering another line of revenue that might have otherwise been spent on more elaborate or fantastic brick and mortar upgrades.

Most casinos have bought into the idea of combining services, overlapping the in-person experience with the virtual. Game rooms in large resorts offer customers the chance to play in person via virtual or augmented reality. You can play from the TV in your resort bedroom or on your phone at the poolside. You can even spin the wheel in the loo (but why would you?).

The Future of Casino Themes

So, where do we go from here? This is a question on the lips of many concept creators all over the world, and if we had the answer, we wouldn’t be writing about it; we would be living it, implementing it immediately. But here’s a thought that might have Freidman throwing darts at his mood board—less casino action in land-based establishments and more entertainment, socialising and way more retail. Offer the customer a chance to touch and feel; after all, online play is exciting, for sure, but unless smell-a-vison becomes a reality, location vacations are here to stay, so embrace the magic. Designing this way isn’t just a pivot; it’s a renaissance.

We’re at a Casino design trend crossroads. The digital experience will always be in the background, but our collective human spirit yearns for deeper, more visceral answers to entertainment. The answer? Keep transforming casinos into social hubs, vibrant ecosystems where gaming is a rich tapestry of interactions and original events.

Modern-day Friedmens or Roger Thomas fans must go big on mesmerising entertainment, live performances that stimulate, entertain, and even educate. They must foster communal spaces that invite genuine and personal interaction. Designers today must think—we’re not just designing gambling venues; we’re building communities where shared experiences forge lasting memories or not! The bottom line is that the numbers don’t lie, and they also don’t predict the future.

The New Clothes Philosophy

The fact is that no concept is new; every idea has been around in one way or another. How many times have you had the same product offered to you in new packaging (loads, but you probably didn’t notice it)? The idea of newness is what sells, not the actual product; this is where the new is better philosophy comes into play.

Firstly, we do not advocate repackaging an out-of-date failing concept as a good idea, but it is a reality. The concept used in design terms is not about hiding the truth; it’s about taking a great idea, making it better and then selling the concept to the masses. What’s more, the philosophy isn’t a new invention; look at the Nintendo Power Glove, a big fail back in the early 2000s, reinvented and repackaged in 2006 to great acclaim, selling millions, old product redesigned into a shiny new plaything. That’s winning!

Back to casinos and their signature themes, the pirates no longer walk the plank at Treasure Island, and The Mirage closed in 2024, giving fans one last eruption and making way for a guitar-shaped hotel tower for hard rockers. The glamorous days of the Flamingo in downtown Vegas have checked out, but the area offers a better, more local vibe with a thriving antique shop, vintage store, and art gallery scene.

With way more independent and one-off shopping and dining experiences to enjoy, the revolving door of design has returned to downtown, as it will in the strip (eventually) until an entirely new concept is born. Then goodness knows where we will be!