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Back to Lucky #888 — My Tour of Designing Luck in China, Japan, and Korea.

Why Did a Casino Build a Room Around One Gambler's Birthday?

Tim Ferriss says a casino built a private room around one gambler's birthday because both the player and the house want the room to feel lucky. At the Venetian in 2012, a firm designed a private gaming room for an unnamed high roller, and a feng shui expert used that person's birthday and zodiac sign to shape the room. A favorite chair or a favorite chocolate is ordinary service. A room built from birth information is a different level of courting a whale, a player who might spend 10 million dollars or more on a single stay.

A 2016 account he cites described Caesars VIP villas whose numbers began with eight, and properties that skipped floors labeled 40 through 49, the forties that carry the unlucky four. Casino architect Paul Steelman said in 2015 that the buildings have to be designed for good feng shui for both the player and the casino owner.

Transcript

Lucky #888 — My Tour of Designing Luck in China, Japan, and Korea ·

The Tim Ferriss Show

More from this episode

  1. Why Is Eight Lucky in Chinese Culture?Tim Ferriss says eight is lucky in Chinese culture because the Mandarin word for eight sounds like prosperity. Eight is ba.
  2. What Is a Million-dollar License Plate?Tim Ferriss says a million-dollar license plate is a real auction result.
  3. Why Does the Jin Mao Tower Have 88 Floors?Tim Ferriss says the Jin Mao Tower in Shanghai has 88 floors because the client wanted an auspicious number.
  4. Why Do Hotels in East Asia Skip the Number Four?Tim Ferriss says hotels and other buildings in East Asia often skip floor numbers that contain a four, because four is the unlucky flip side of eight.
  5. Why Do Some U.S. Two-dollar Bills Start With 8888?Tim Ferriss says some U.S. two-dollar bills start with 8888 because the bureau that prints American money sold the luck of the number eight.
  6. Why Does Toyota Hide a Lucky Number in Its Name?Tim Ferriss says Toyota hides a lucky eight in its name. The founding family name was Toyoda, spelled with a D.
  7. Why Does the Korean Word for Fate Mean Eight Characters?Tim Ferriss says the everyday Korean word for a person's lot in life, palja, means eight characters.
  8. Why Can 666 Mean Good Luck in Chinese?Tim Ferriss says 666 can mean good luck in Chinese, not bad news in every place.

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