An Eye that does not sleep

When the family of J.R.R. Tolkien sold the rights to The Lord of the Rings to the company that ended up making the (quite good really) movie trilogy there was a minor dust up.  Evidently down in the fine print of the contract was a provision that among the other merchandising rights signed away was permission to use the copyrighted material in advertising for gambling.  The deeply religious Professor Tolkien probably turned over in his grave a few times but the contract was signed and was in fact quite specific.

And they meant it too.

I am with the Professor on this one.  Vegas casinos are noisy places, inhabited not by cheerful hobbits but by dead eyed slaves (to their gambling addiction).  I realize that Frodo and company enjoyed a bit of pipe weed when they could get it, but I hardly think the foul stink of Marlboros would be at all the same to them.

No, casinos are no place for the Free Peoples of Middle Earth.  Orcs would manage there.  They would never have to see the sun. And they would constantly be under the watch of the Eye that Does Not Sleep....

"...a well-ordered and well-farmed countryside was their favorite haunt.  They do not and did not understand or like machines more complicated than a forge-bellows, a water-mill or a hand-loom..."

J.R.R. Tolkien "Concerning Hobbits"