I think the "cheesecake" is there because this particular installation is in Esquires ultimate bachelor pad. May have been the magazines choice, who knows?

As for an LCD, I wouldn't want to masse on that. The whole point of doing it this way is to preserve the feel and play of the table.

And and yes it is an overpriced pointless luxury item... the 125,000 probably doesn't even include the table to play on.

Could probably do this for way less with some sort of open source software, a laptop, a video camera, and a much cheaper projector.

American Marines from Okinawa train with the Thais all the time. If you look at the guy on the right he has the old OD camo and the thai writing. The rest are wearing the marine MARPAT pattern and are likely American Marines just as the caption indicates.