1. As of 2011, 368 million
people visit Las Vegas every year, and visitors stay 3.7 nights on average.
2. It’s estimated that 38% of
all Americans have been to Las Vegas in their lifetime!
3. 17 of the 20 biggest
hotels in the United States call Las Vegas home.
4. There is one slot machine
for every 2-½ resident of Las Vegas!
5. Every year, nearly 20,000
conventions hold their meetings in the city.
6. Las Vegas is the fastest
growing city in the U.S.
7. Every year, players lose
$6-8 billion betting and gambling at Las Vegas casinos.
9. The first hotel and casino
that opened in Las Vegas was the Golden Gate Hotel and Casino in 1906.
10. Gambling wasn’t always
legal in Las Vegas and Nevada: a 1910 law made it illegal, though that was
later repealed in 1931 by the Nevada Legislature.
11. Second only to South
Africa, Nevada is the next largest gold producer in the world.
12. The Golden Nugget Hotel
displays the largest gold nugget ever found, weighing 61 pounds!
13. During the era of
gangsterism, the slot machines in Vegas used to be fixed to give smaller and
less frequent payouts. It was largely the work of one engineer under employ of
the mob, but when he threatened to go public with the admission, he was found
murdered.
14. Now, it’s mandated and
carefully regulated that video slot machines pay out a minimum of 75 percent on
average.
15. Vegas Vic, the huge neon
cowboy likeness on Fremont Street, is the largest mechanical neon sign in the
world.
17. Hughes went on a
hotel-buying spree, including the Castaways, the Landmark, New Frontier, the
Sands, and the Silver Slipper. Although he also did some horrible, bizarre
things, Hughes is largely credited with ending the mob stranglehold on the
Vegas gaming business.
18. Las Vegas has a dark
history of racism and segregation that largely has gone unrecanted. In the
1950s, the city was known as the “Mississippi of the West” because of its
brutal Jim Crow practices. At first in the 1930s, it was partially racially
mixed, but as Southern racist visitors started complaining about black people
in the casinos, hotels, and restaurants – even if they were working – the black
population was forced to West Vegas, which had dirt roads, tents and shacks,
and often no running water.
19. Even famous performers
like Lena Horne and Nat King Cole had to come and go through the Blacks Only
exits in the back of casinos and hotels when they performed.
20. It was actually the Rat
Pack and Sammy Davis Jr. who can be given some of the credit for shifting Vegas’
segregation. Davis suffered horrid racist treatment like the rest of his
less-famous black people, including the hotel pool being drained after he swam
in it at the request of white patrons.
22. In 1960, the NAACP planned
a massive march down the Vegas strip to protest the racial conditions. City
officials met with hotel and casino owners because they were worried the march
would cripple their tourism, so they decided to end formal racial segregation
in the city.
23. The Moulin Rouge became
the first racially integrated hotel in Las Vegas in 1955.
24. Quite a few fortunes have
been lost at the Las Vegas casinos, but a few have also been made. In 1992, a
man named Archie Karas turned $50 into $40,000,000! Imagine that! But then he
kept playing and ended up losing it all.
25. Fred Smith, the CEO of Fed
Ex, saved his young company in 1970 by gambling his last $5,000 in Vegas. He
turned that 5k into $32,000 at the Blackjack tables, which was enough to keep
his company expenses and payroll afloat a few days longer, at which time the
company was saved with an $11 million investment.
26. In 2004, a British gambler
named Ashley Revell sold all of his possession and material things, including
his wardrobe, and best his last money in the world, $135,300, all on red for a
single spin of roulette. He actually won, doubling his money to $270,600!
27. In the United States (not
just Vegas), the legal gambling industry creates more revenue than all pro
sports, theme parks, cruise ships, movies, and music combined!
An estimated 87% of all
people who visit Vegas gamble.
28. On average, those gamblers
spend $580.90 on betting and gamble 4 hours per day.
29. The largest age
demographic to Las Vegas is actually the 65 and older crowd, at 22% of all
visitors.
30. Only two decades ago, it
was legal to gamble in only two states. Now, gambling is legal in some form in
48 states, with only Hawaii and Utah still strictly banning it.
32. An astounding 84.4% of
Nevada’s land is owned by the federal government, by far the most of any state.
33. Counting cards at the
blackjack table is the subject of many movies. However, not many people realize
that counting cards is not technically illegal in Las Vegas. But it is
considered cheating, and violators who are caught may be suspended or banned
from casinos.
34. Speaking of bans, the
Nevada Gaming Control Board started keeping a black leather-bound book in the
1930’s with the names of people with a “notorious or unsavory reputation.”
These people were blackballed from playing, owning, or even entering any casino
or gambling establishment within the city limits. The book still exists,
though it’s called the List of Excluded Persons, and currently includes 66
cheats, mobsters, card counters, and other unsavory elements.
35. The minimum age to gamble
in Las Vegas is 21, not 18. Minors are allowed in the hotels and casinos but
only to pass through to their rooms or destination and they are prohibited from
lingering around the gaming areas, even if they’re with an adult.
36. While Vegas may be the
gambling capitol of the world, it’s not universally embraced in Nevada. In
fact, only 25 miles off the strip in Boulder City, gambling is illegal.
37. In Chinese culture, the
number four is considered bad luck, so to cater to Asian tourists and
gamblers, the Wynn Las Vergas and Rio hotels and casinos have elevators that
skip from 39 to 50 to exclude the 40s.
38. There are many famous
handicappers in the history of Las Vegas, but the one so good he was called
King or Guru is Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal. He started the first sports and race
book at the Stardust Hotel and Casino and his likeness was made famous as a
character in the movie Casino (played by Robert de Niro).
39. Las Vegas even has mayors
larger than life, as Oscar Goodman, who came to office in 1999, used to show up
at public appearances with two showgirls at his side, rejected the attempt to
make Vegas family friendly, called himself “The Happiest Mayor in the
Universe,” and showed up at a Q and A for 4th grader sipping
martinis and responded to a question by saying his favorite pastime was
drinking gin.
41. Area 51 employs hundred of
civilian contractors, but as it’s an 8-hour commute to the next city, the
government flies them in and out on a private plane for work every day.
42. The
fleet of private unmarked 737s is nicknamed “Janet Airlines” due to the call
sign they use.
43. The first casinos lacked
safety features like water sprinklers in the entire building. There was an epic
fire in the MGM Grand Hotel in 1980 where 85 people died, 679 were injured, and
2,000 people airlifted to safety from the hotel roof on helicopters.
44. Despite rumors and even
common practices, prostitution is not legal in Vegas. In fact, the law only
allows legal prostitution in Nevada counties with less than 400,000 residents,
which was originally made the cut off number to keep brothels out of Clark
County.
45. Speaking of legal, you are
allowed to carry around an alcoholic beverage in Las Vegas with some
restrictions: you can only leave an establishment with said beverage if they
allow and it’s not in a metal or glass container (no beer cans). Also, you
can’t drink within 1,000 feet of a school, hospital, or place of worship.
