YOU’VE BEEN LIQUIDATED by the pool sharks and you now know where the craps table got its name, so retreat to the Golden Nugget hotel’s 750,000-plus-litre aquarium, where you can stare down some real sharks with more confidence than you ever had on the casino floor.

Featuring a three-storey waterslide running right through an aquarium holding 15 species of sharks, stingrays and bony fish, the venerable hotel-casino’s $30-million aquatic complex also boasts waterfalls, seven private cabanas with plasma televisions, refrigerators and a dive bar offering specialty drinks

Free for hotel guests and children under two; day passes are US$10 for ages 12 and older, US$5 for youth age two to 11. Open daily, weather permitting.

goldennugget.com