Chips with Everything

Forget cuddling koalas or trekking in the outback. When your travels next take you Down Under, do something far more Australian — go gambling instead. The Australian love of punting often surprises first-time visitors who labor under the touching delusion that locals spend all their leisure time outdoors and not in smoke-filled gambling parlors.

But New South Wales is reputed to be home to 10% of the world's poker machines. Many of them seem to be located in Sydney's sprawling Star City casino complex, tel: (61-2) 9777 9000, smack on Darling Harbour and one of the city's inescapable landmarks. With its 145,000-square-meter main gaming room awash in color, noise and distraction, this populist fun palace is a fair approximation of what entertainment venues would look like if the Roman Empire still existed.

When you're tired of feeding slots, you can lose some serious money at the stud poker or roulette tables, and then console yourself in one of Star City's six bars — the Glo lounge, overlooking the gaming floor, is for those who like their drinks with a dash of retro camp. Seven restaurants on-site mean you won't go hungry, while the complex's Lyric Theatre is the setting for bombastic, Vegas-style shows by the score (catch veteran crooner Engelbert Humperdinck in mid-December). Bread and circuses indeed.