Las Vegas

Las Vegas: A City That Didn’t Exist Until Someone Decided to Build It in the Desert

Las Vegas was incorporated in 1905 as a railroad service town at the midpoint of William Clark’s line between Salt Lake City and Los Angeles. The first casino licences were issued in 1931, the same year Nevada legalised gambling to cope with the economic collapse, and construction began on the Boulder Dam 30 miles east. Dam workers were housed in Boulder City, a dry government town with no bars and no gambling; they spent their days off in Las Vegas. The mob followed in 1946 when Bugsy Siegel opened the Flamingo on a stretch of U.S. Highway 91 just outside the city limits, which is why Las Vegas Boulevard is technically in unincorporated Clark County. Siegel was shot dead in Beverly Hills in 1947 before the Flamingo turned a profit. The Strip outlasted him and kept building.

The city that exists in 2026 bears almost no resemblance to what Siegel opened. It has the Sphere.

The Sphere

Opened in 2023 on the east side of the Strip behind the Venetian, the Sphere is a 366-foot-tall spherical venue covered in 1.2 million LED panels externally and containing the world’s largest LED screen inside. It seats about 20,000 and is designed for immersive audio-visual experiences rather than conventional concerts, though major acts have played residencies here. The 2026 schedule includes extensions of Backstreet Boys and Kenny Chesney residencies, a No Doubt run, and continued screenings of the Wizard of Oz immersive experience. Tickets range from around $100 to several hundred dollars depending on the show and seat. If you are visiting Las Vegas in 2026 and have not allocated time to see something at the Sphere, you have missed the most genuinely new thing the city has built in a generation. Book well in advance.

Adjacent to the Sphere, the AREA15 complex has expanded with Zone 2: The Terminals, which includes a permanent Universal Horror Unleashed experience across four haunted-house environments and an immersive VR space-flight simulator called Interstellar Arc.

The Strip

The 4.2-mile stretch of Las Vegas Boulevard between Sahara Avenue and Russell Road contains roughly 30 major casino-resort properties. The Bellagio fountains, the Venetian canal system, the Mirage volcano (now closed), the High Roller observation wheel, and the Paris Las Vegas Eiffel Tower replica are all within walking distance of each other, which makes it easy to spend an entire day on this strip without seeing anything that is not designed specifically to hold your attention and separate you from money. That is not a criticism; it is what the place is and does exceptionally well.

The Fontainebleau, which opened in 2023 as the tallest building in Las Vegas at 67 floors and nearly 4,000 rooms, is the newest major resort on the Strip and has settled into steady operation. For a new-development property it is impressively well-run.

The Fremont Street Experience, in downtown Las Vegas six miles north of the Strip, is a five-block pedestrian zone covered by a 1,500-foot LED canopy that runs light shows overhead every hour from dusk. The casinos here are older, lower-stakes, and decidedly less polished than the Strip. The Golden Nugget is the most comfortable of the downtown hotels. Downtown is worth a half-day visit, particularly for the contrast with the Strip’s manufactured grandeur.

Eating Off the Strip

Every restaurant inside a Strip casino charges for the location. The food is sometimes genuinely excellent and always expensive. The more interesting option is to eat where Las Vegas residents actually eat.

Lotus of Siam, in a strip mall on East Sahara Avenue, is the most consistently praised restaurant in the city and has been for two decades. The Northern Thai menu is the draw, particularly the drunken noodles and the curries. Mains run $15 to $25. The wine list, unusually for a Thai restaurant, is excellent and focused on Alsatian and German whites that pair well with spiced food.

Raku, in the Chinatown district on Spring Mountain Road, is a Japanese izakaya with a James Beard recognition. The robata grill items, particularly the chicken knee skewers and the grilled eggplant, are the core of the menu. The homemade tofu is made daily. Dinner for two runs $60 to $100 without drinks.

China Mama, also in the Chinatown corridor, has been cited as the best Chinese restaurant in Las Vegas by local critics. Most dishes are in the $10 to $15 range. Battista’s Hole in the Wall, one block east of the Strip behind the Flamingo, has been serving Italian-American red-sauce cooking since 1970 and includes a carafe of house wine with every dinner. It is not fashionable and it is very good.

For cheap tacos at any hour, Tacos El Gordo on the Strip at East Flamingo Road operates with Las Vegas logic (open late, cash only for some items, permanently busy).

What to Do Beyond Gambling

Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area is 17 miles west of the Strip and requires a $15 vehicle entry fee. The 13-mile scenic drive loops past sandstone formations up to 3,000 feet tall. Several trail systems leave from the drive; Calico Hills is the most accessible for non-hikers and takes about an hour. Most visitors combine Red Rock with Valley of Fire State Park, 55 miles northeast, where ancient Aztec Sandstone formations turn red in late afternoon light. A combined day trip takes 8 to 9 hours.

The Mob Museum, formally the National Museum of Organised Crime and Law Enforcement, opened in 2012 in the city’s former courthouse where Kefauver Senate hearings into organised crime were held in 1950. It is better researched and more genuinely interesting than the name suggests, and it gives context for why the city is built the way it is.

Where to Stay

The Strip hotels are enormous and the rooms are often smaller and older than the opulent lobbies suggest. Booking directly with the hotel rather than through a third-party site usually produces a better rate and easier check-in. The Bellagio, Wynn, and Venetian are the Strip’s most consistently maintained luxury options. The LINQ is the best-value mid-range option for access to the central Strip.

Off-Strip, the Palms and the Rio are cheaper and livelier for locals but require a rideshare to reach most main attractions. Downtown at the Golden Nugget puts you in a different, older version of the city that some visitors prefer.

Room rates vary enormously with convention calendars. The Consumer Electronics Show in January and several large fight weekends in autumn push rates to multiples of the normal price. Checking what conventions are in town during your dates is a worthwhile ten minutes of research before booking.

Practical Notes

Las Vegas in July and August regularly exceeds 45 degrees Celsius. The casinos are air-conditioned to temperatures that feel cold. Walking the Strip outdoors for more than 20 minutes between noon and 4pm in summer is uncomfortable and potentially dangerous if you are not carrying water. The heat is serious and worth planning around.

The Las Vegas Monorail covers the east side of the Strip between the MGM Grand and the Sahara. Rideshare services are the most practical way to get between the Strip, downtown, and off-Strip restaurants. Taxis exist but are expensive relative to rideshare.

Gambling: the house edge varies enormously by game. Blackjack with basic strategy played correctly gives the house an edge of around 0.5 per cent. Slot machines are typically set between 5 and 10 per cent in favour of the house. If you are going to gamble, blackjack and video poker with a paid-for strategy card are the games where the math is least brutal. Set a gambling budget before you start and treat it as the cost of entertainment rather than an investment.