It ain’t Monte Carlo, but it’s a heck of scene right here in our own backyard, far more shiny than anything most of us had come to expect in this decidedly un-glitzy corner of Bucks. The chameleon-like color changes and sculptural detail of the casino’s facade, the incessant ringing and bleeping of the slots, the wall of cigarette smoke that greets you like an open-handed slap. The space, in its entirety, seems to have been constructed somewhere else and dropped- humanitarian relief-style-into the center of the least likely place on the planet.īut there it is, shimmering in the distance like some sort of proto-Vegas promised land as your car trundles past strip center after rundown strip center en route to Bucks County’s one-building stand-in for The Strip itself.īut then you pull into the valet line and the journey there is forgotten in an instant. As you head into the Parx Casino in Bensalem, be prepared for the cognitive dissonance you’ll inevitably experience.