Las Vegas Strip
Las Vegas Strip, hub of casinos, hotels, restaurants, and entertainment venues that spans an approximately 4-mile (6-km) portion of Las Vegas Boulevard. The Strip is a major tourist attraction in the United States, raking in billions of dollars a year in profits from its casinos. Although it is closely identified with Las Vegas, the Strip is actually outside the city, in unincorporated Clark county.
The first legally recognized casinos on the Strip were the Red Rooster and the Pair O’ Dice clubs in the early 1930s, coinciding with the legalization of gambling in Nevada. While these establishments were the first legal gambling locations on the section of Highway 91 that would later become the Strip, the first hotel-casino closer to the types of resorts on the modern-day Strip did not appear until Thomas Hull opened the El Rancho Vegas resort in 1941.
On December 26, 1946, mobster Bugsy Siegel opened the Flamingo, one of Las Vegas’s first hotel and casino complexes. (Although the opening’s financial failure led to the Flamingo’s closure only two weeks later, the complex was reopened in March 1947.) The ensuing success of the Flamingo spurred the opening of other mob-run casinos during the next few decades.
The first racially integrated casino on the Strip, the Moulin Rouge, which was partly owned by African American heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis, opened in 1955. Five years later, Las Vegas and the Strip integrated all properties after an agreement between Mayor Oran Gragson and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Themed hotel-casino complexes began popping up during the 1960s, including Caesars Palace in 1966 and Circus Circus, a family-oriented resort, in 1968. The mob’s grip on Las Vegas began to loosen in the 1980s as the federal government cracked down on skimming and secret ownerships by organized crime. Billionaire businessman Howard Hughes had earlier set the stage for a corporate era in Las Vegas when he bought several local resorts during the 1960s.
In 1989, after receiving funding in the form of junk bonds from the prominent financier Michael Milken, Las Vegas entrepreneur Steve Wynn opened the Mirage. Featuring tiger and lion shows by the magicians Siegfried and Roy, a fake volcano, and a dolphin habitat, the Mirage lured visitors with family entertainment as well as gambling. As Wynn told the Chicago Tribune in an interview in 1989, “I won’t say we’re going specifically after [Disney’s] customers, but it is a happy fact of life that we are both being driven by the same booming interest in resorts and very, very high-quality entertainment.”
The Mirage, which cost $630 million to build, led the way for similar resorts that opened during the 1990s. The new complexes, like the Mirage, were more family friendly, contrasting with the bawdier nature of mid-century Las Vegas. Many casinos built after the Mirage were themed after travel locations, including Paris, Venice, New York, and Rome.
Residencies, in which artists perform at a single venue for an extended period, have always been a staple of the Strip: Liberace began a residency at Hotel Last Frontier in 1944, and numerous other musicians and singers—including Louis Armstrong, Nat King Cole, Elvis Presley, and Frank Sinatra—performed in long-term engagements for much of the 20th century. Comedians and magicians have also taken up residencies on the Strip, including performers such as Carrot Top, David Copperfield, and Criss Angel. Celebrity chefs including Bobby Flay, Gordon Ramsay, and Guy Fieri have restaurants in Strip properties. Massive shopping centers house hundreds of retailers in one location, and many brands have chosen the Strip for their flagship store. Attractions such as Ferris wheels, roller coasters, and other thrill rides can also be found on the Strip. However, gambling is still the major draw: in a 12-month period ending in March 2023, the Strip generated $8.5 billion in gaming revenue.
Locations on the Strip have been featured in many movies: Presley’s Viva Las Vegas (1964) showcased several resorts, and the buddy comedy The Hangover (2009) was shot at Caesars Palace. Both Ocean’s Eleven (1960) and its 2001 remake feature resorts on the Strip: the Desert Inn, Flamingo, Riviera, Sahara, and Sands are featured in the first, and the Bellagio, the MGM Grand, and the Mirage are the targets of the heist at the center of the remake. Narratives inspired by mobsters who owned Strip properties were showcased in Bugsy (1991), based on the original Flamingo owner, and Casino (1995), based on Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal, who ran several Strip properties.
Today, corporations have consolidated ownership and management over Strip properties. Caesars Entertainment and MGM Resorts International operate most of the casinos on the Strip, though the buildings housing the casinos and the land on which the buildings are constructed are owned by Vici Properties, a real estate investment trust.