Which casino capital is better, Las Vegas or Macau? Our travellers decide

Going to Macau instead of Las Vegas is like going to an Elvis tribute show. Sure, it might look and even sound a bit like the original but it's still just an imitation. At the OG, you feel the excitement as soon as you land and see that 'Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas Nevada' sign. There are even pokies at the airport so you can get started while you wait for your luggage. Then you hit the Strip and realise the mindboggling immensity and well, fabulousness, of the place. And at night, when the party really starts, it explodes into a thriving, thumping neon wonderland.

The hotels in Vegas offer 150,000 rooms a night and engage in a constant arms race for size and general amazingness. The biggest, the MGM Grand, has nearly 7000 rooms and says it washes and irons 15,000 pillowcases a day. MGM also boasts 13 restaurants including two Joel Robuchons.

The Luxor is a pyramid-shaped edifice with a Great Sphinx, a giant obelisk, the largest hotel atrium in the world and a sky beam visible to aircraft cruising into Los Angeles more than 400 kilometres away. The Venetian has a canal with gondolas, a Ponte Rialto, a Piazza San Marco and the 112-metre-high Sphere, a new entertainment space with an exterior of 54,000 square metres of programmable LED lighting. It opens in September with a little Irish combo called U2 in residence.

The Bellagio is best known for its dancing water fountains on a three-hectare lake in front of the resort but it also has a Gallery of Fine Art, botanical gardens and the world's largest glass sculpture in the lobby.

You can check out the Strip from 46 storeys up on the viewing deck of the half-scale replica Eiffel Tower at the Paris Hotel, which also has an Arc de Triomphe, a Paris Opera House and a Louvre. At Linq you can take a spin on the bigger-than-the-London-Eye High Roller Observation Wheel. Mandalay Bay has a shark reef aquarium. Planet Hollywood has a "Miracle Mile" of shopping. The Mirage has an erupting volcano. New York-New York has a Brooklyn Bridge, a Statue of Liberty and the Big Apple rollercoaster. The Rio has a zipline. The Flamingo has flamingos.

Every hotel features incredible restaurants and amazing shows. There are more Cirque du Soleils than you can shake an acrobat at. And if you don't like gambling, you can just get married. Irony aside, this is actually a lot of fun. Elvis or Wacko Jacko can be your celebrant, or you can theme Hawaiian, fairy tale, Star Trek, Star Wars, gothic and mafia. However you want to do "I do", they'll do it.

Vegas is gloriously glitzy, astonishingly ostentatious, wonderfully weird and cleverly kitsch. It's just colossal (and yes, there's even a Colosseum - at Caesars Palace, even though they couldn't afford an apostrophe).

By Amy Cooper

Cards on the table: Vegas is slots of fun. But there are only so many times you can wake up married to someone you met yesterday, with a tiger in the bathroom and a baby in the wardrobe.

For a richer experience in every way, my money's on Macau. For some years Asia's answer to Vegas has outpaced Sin City in gambling revenue, so you could argue the odds on a jackpot are higher. But the real win for this former Portuguese colony on the Pearl River Delta is a long and colourful history you won't find in the arid Nevada desert.

Hundreds of years ago, Macau was a teeming maritime trading post and its east-west melting pot brewed today's potent mix of architecture, food and tradition. Macanese cuisine blends Portuguese and Chinese with hints of Malaysian, African and myriad exotic spices shipped in over centuries. Whether served by Michelin chef or street hawker, this OG fusion cuisine is Macau's tasty trump card - from codfish fried rice and African chicken to the irresistible Portuguese custard tarts.

Macau's historic centre is a UNESCO World Heritage site filled with architectural treasures. Senado Square, with its patterned cobbled streets and pastel buildings, the 1784 Leal Senado building, the 1569 Santa Casa de Misericordia and the 17th-century Ruins of St Paul's hark back to an era long before Liberace and late-career Elvis.

European and Chinese influences intertwine. Within a stroll you can see the 1626 Fortaleza do Monte, an 8000sqm fortress, and the 1488 A-Ma Temple and its Confucian, Taoist, and Buddhist pavilions. Superimposed on that backdrop like a blinding supernova of bling, Macau's monuments to maximalism make Vegas look like a village.

Macau has six of the world's 10 biggest casinos, including the second largest, the Venetian Macau (ironically, the world's biggest is in Italy). Its gargantuan 980,000sqm footprint encompasses 3000 hotel rooms, a gaming floor the size of 16 football pitches, 800 gaming tables, 3400 slot machines, a canal with singing gondoliers and a 10,000sqm fake sky, 350 shops, and a 13,000-seat entertainment arena. Morpheus hotel at City of Dreams is as striking in its way as Macau's heritage landmarks. Designed by Dame Zaha Hadid, the "neo-futurist", 40-storey exoskeleton with an eight-shaped hole in the middle contains eye-watering levels of luxury, including a spa with real snow and a butler for every whim. Studio City, a cinema themed resort, boasts the world's highest figure-eight Ferris wheel.

Access to all this action is easy; simply hop across from Hong Kong by ferry, or via the 55-kilometre Hong Kong-Zuhai-Macau Bridge, the world's longest sea-crossing bridge and tunnel. It's a safe bet you'll have fun, live royally and maybe strike it lucky, all without the risk of subsequent blackmail.