Who Paid For The Fountain? A Gambling Paper Investigation
We followed the money behind the Golden Parlay’s famous water show for nine months. Every trail ended on the slot floor.
LAS VEGAS. Every twenty minutes after dark, the fountain outside the Golden Parlay Casino fires 1,100 jets of water two hundred feet into the air in time to a power ballad, and every twenty minutes somebody in the crowd asks who paid for it. For nine months, this newspaper has tried to find out.
Using planning documents, annual reports, a leaked budget spreadsheet and a great many conversations at the bar, we traced the fountain’s $41 million construction cost, its $3.2 million a year in upkeep and the $90,000 a year it pays to use the power ballad.
Following the money
- The fountain was paid for by the Golden Parlay.
- The Golden Parlay was paid for by its gaming revenue.
- The gaming revenue was paid for by its customers, at a few cents in every dollar wagered at the tables and rather more at the slots.
- The customers, when asked, said they had been meaning to ask the same thing.
A source in the casino’s finance department, who asked not to be named because it is embarrassing to be the person who confirmed this, said the budget spreadsheet has a tab titled simply Fountain (Them).
Every time a man walks in with a system, the water goes up another foot.
Right of reply
The Golden Parlay said the fountain is “a gift to the city” and free to watch. Readers who follow our reporting from the casino floor will know that the casino uses the word free in a specific sense. Its spokesman then asked whether we would be staying for the nine o’clock show, and pointed us to the best place to watch it from, which was inside.
