Friday, July 20, 2001 | 4:34 a.m.
Susan Snyder's column also appears Tuesdays and Fridays in the Las Vegas Sun. Reach her at [email protected] or 259-4082.
Every weekend, they come by the thousands.
They arrive by private jet -- high-rollers who are kowtowed and coddled by big Strip resorts and stay in suites bigger than the average three-bedroom home.
They arrive on bargain flights booked over the Internet -- low-rollers who stood ready to travel at a moment's notice, punched in their credit card numbers and bragged to co-workers, "I'm going to Vegas."
They arrive by the carload after making the tedious drive across the desert from California, along a stretch of highway dotted with sagebrush and worn-out cars. They're on a mission, hardly noticing the World's Tallest Thermometer, the sign marked Zzyzx Rd and Peggy Sue's Diner.
They roll past California's last Lotto store and into Primm. They spot Buffalo Bill's roller coaster, and in the distance, on the horizon, Jean. And they know they're almost there.
"Vegas." People who don't know it at all, know it well enough to use the single-word name.
People who come here are hoping to win but very often lose. And we love them best -- the losers.
No place on Earth loves a loser like Las Vegas because losers built this growth-strangled city in the middle of the Mojave Desert.
There are winners, of course. Maybe they'll win enough to sit all day in front of that nickel slot at Arizona Charlie's West. Maybe they'll pick up a few thousand playing blackjack on the Strip.
Maybe they'll plunk the locals' obligatory $30 into a Megabucks machine and walk away with millions. Just 10 pulls stands between another day at work and total freedom.
For a 37-year-old Las Vegas cocktail waitress, it took nine. She raked in $34.9 million only to lose the freedom to spend it a tragic traffic accident a few weeks later. It's the kind of story that for most of the world defines Las Vegas.
We keep the lines fuzzy between well-heeled and shabby, winners and losers. One can't survive without the other.
Las Vegas knows no bounds when it comes to claiming losers. A self-indulgent casino heir dies and his girlfriend and her new lover stand convicted of the murder in a twisted tale involving 24 tons of silver buried in the desert. Buried treasure? Only here.
More recently television reports have spotlighted a pyramid scheme in which allegedly prominent business-people turned over bags of cash to a man whom police said claimed to be covering overextended high-rollers at Las Vegas' poshest casinos.
It's a con man's fairy tale in a town built on fantasy and sleight of hand. Where else does a police investigation turn up stacks of $100 bills 3 1/2 feet high? In what other place could those most seemingly in the know about how the town's money is made be duped into believing such a yarn?
And yet they arrived at the man's office daily, toting bags of $10,000 or more. They played hard and lost big.
But they will be back because that's how it works. When we tire of something we blow it to smithereens, slap each other on the back and build something newer, bigger and more incredible in its place.
We're not afraid to risk going over the top. It's how we do things.
We know there will be losers.
We count on the losers.
And every weekend, they come.
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