An analysis on the Sonic series' casinos and their real world inspirations

Don't really know how to begin this thread, so I'll just say that casino-themed levels have always been some of the most popular in the entire series, and much like how City Escape was inspired by San Francisco and Green Hill was inspired by California in general, most of them are based on real locations too:

Casino Night (Sonic 2, Sonic Drift 2, Tails' Skypatrol, Sonic the Fighters, Sonic Generations)



Obviously we have to start with the original and the most iconic, which arguably inspired all the later ones. We know from Yuji Naka that this level is based on Las Vegas, but which parts of the city specifically? Well, by looking at the actual level art and the buildings in the background that are nearest to the player, we can tell that the area which Sonic and Tails traverse through is an old-timey area with bright neon lights and low, almost classical buildings. It's a sharp contrast to the background's distant skyline, where you can see an endless row of tall, modern and geometric fortresses of glass and steel.

So the nearby buildings are an old school neon paradise, while the distant ones are a concentration of modern megaresorts? We can therefore conclude that Sonic and Tails are running through Fremont Street, Vegas' original and historic entertainment district, while the Las Vegas Strip, the city's present day signature precinct, is what you see in the distance. Or can we?

Even though the Strip didn't truly become the Sin City's place to be until the Mirage resort was constructed in 1989, it still has its share of historic landmarks. Take a look at that large building on the right. It's a big, boxy building with flower-shaped neon ornaments and a logo written in a stylish cursive font. The Strip's iconic Flamingo resort, first opened in 1946 and originally operated by the infamous gangster Bugsy Siegel, seems like a perfect match:



How about that funny-shaped red and yellow neon sign on the left?



It's an exact match for the iconic sign of the Strip's former Dunes resort...



...or at least it was until 2011, when Sonic Generations made it look like this:



I don't think that it's a deliberate change, though, just a misinterpretation of the original sprite by somebody who had never seen the Dunes sign (which had been demolished for nearly 20 years by the time of Gens' release!). Generations has a bunch of other misinterpretations like this, such as the 3DS version changing the Flamingo-inspired building's rooftop flower lights into a generic spherical shape.

And speaking of the 3DS version, I'm fairly certain that this building-



-is supposed to be based on either the Landmark (left) or Stratosphere (right) resorts, though I could be mistaken.



But as far as the other versions of CNZ go, Dark Castle in Skypatrol only reuses the background from Sonic 2 with no changes, and Sonic Drift 2 and Sonic the Fighters including the stage could be a reference to Vegas' rich motor- and combat sports history respectively, though I may be grasping at straws.

I hope I didn't set y'all up for disappointment, as I have nowhere near as much to say about the other casino levels.

 

Casinopolis (Sonic Adventure)



Given this level's New York -inspired location of Station Square, you'd think that it'd be based on casinos from Atlantic City, but nope, we're going back to Vegas, baby. See that entrance sign?



Because here's what the entrance of the Four Queens resort on Fremont Street looks like.

The interior is all Vegas, too. The pirate ships?



Treasure Island on the Strip.



The golden lion statue?



MGM Grand on the Strip.



The weird, moaning neon cowgirl that's only in the original Japanese release?



Girls of Glitter Gulch on Fremont.



And that's about it for Casinopolis.

I have things to say about Advance's Casino Paradise, Heroes' Casino Park, Sonic 4's Casino Street and Forces' Casino Forest too, but I think I'll leave those to a later date. And hell, maybe I'll cover the racing games one day.

 

The neon flowers are even bigger and more prominent, but otherwise they're mainly just full of unremarkable, indistinct buildings, many of which just look like regular apartment blocks (especially in the Simon Wai background). Not surprising, given that Yamaguchi has said that the earlier backgrounds were drawn by a person who didn't know a lot about casinos.

The presence of the neon flowers seems to contradict that statement, but the Flamingo is pretty well known internationally thanks to popular culture. An Academy Award-winning Bugsy Siegel biopic featuring the casino released in December 1991, so I'm willing to bet that it's where they got the idea from.

 

This issue's penciler has actually claimed that the resemblance is enirely coincidental, lmao.

 

There's definitely a resemblance here too, but I mainly went with the Flamingo because of the neon flowers. CNZ's "SONIC SEGA Casino" is definitely an amalgamation of multiple different real buildings, and I bet we're still missing at least one piece of the puzzle, as I've yet to find a casino with a giant neon sun icon (or is it a roulette spinner?) as a symbol.

That's what I was initially thinking, but there actually is a completely separate balloon statue in the background of the CNZ pinball, and it's a much closer match to Paris' sign: