If you are getting tired of ferry rides to Macau for your gaming and are ready for a clean-air vacation, try the slot machines in Lake Tahoe or just enjoy the mountains.
Visitors can experience the rare combination of adrenalin-feasting gambling tables and dozens of outdoor activities 1,800 metres above sea level as well as see the remnants of the California gold rush.
Holidaymakers who shuffle over to the Nevada side of the town will find plenty of casinos as gambling is legal in that state but not in California.
The Horizon casino, for example, has a 35,000-square-feet floor, is open 24 hours a day and has 25 table games and 785 slot machines. Table limits typically range from US$3 to $500 in the area.
Tahoe is served by an airport at Reno, about an hour's drive away, where flights from San Francisco land. It is essentially a mini-Las Vegas.
'It has all the gambling facilities of Vegas, but lacks the over-the-top unashamed vulgarity that sets Vegas apart,' said one Hong Konger who has tried them both.
'The 122,000-acre lake that the town is named after is clear enough to see a plate 75 feet down,' said one visitor. It is surrounded on all sides by snow-capped peaks. In the summer, you can enjoy jet skiing, sailing, kayaking, motor boating or relaxing on the 19th century paddle boat, Tahoe Queen. In the winter, there is always ice skating. If you wait until November, Tahoe gets white-washed and the skiing is as good as anywhere in North America.
