---
type: Place
title: Las Vegas
description: A functioning city of two million with a four-mile tourist strip attached — where most locals never go, prostitution isn't actually legal, and 1,500 people live in the storm tunnels underneath.
tags: [las-vegas, nevada, united-states, casinos, tourism, buffets, homelessness]
coordinates: {lat: 36.1674, lng: -115.1484}
timestamp: 2026-08-05T12:00:00Z
---

# Las Vegas

Harry's Vegas, in the [United States](/countries/united-states.md), has two
halves, and most of what's useful comes from the second.
The Strip is a four-mile stretch from Mandalay Bay to the Strat, most of whose
hotels are owned by two companies, and it is where the overwhelming majority of
the money is made. Everything else is a city of over two million people with an
ordinary economy, where locals live ten to thirty minutes out and some go years
without going near a casino.

His own comparison is an American Dubai — a tax-advantaged holiday destination
built out of the desert.

## Myths corrected

Taken from [Jacob](/people/jacob.md), a Vegas-based creator who walks him off
the Strip:

- **Nobody lives in the casinos.** People ask him constantly which hotel he
  lives in. Very few locals live on the Strip at all.
- **Prostitution is not legal in Las Vegas.** It is legal in Nevada, but only in
  rural counties — not Clark County, where Vegas is. The nearest legal option is
  Pahrump in Nye County, and fewer than half the rural counties that could offer
  it actually do.
- **Crime is not what the Strip's reputation implies.** Violent crime rose in
  2020 and further in 2021 and has come down since; Los Angeles County is about
  five times the population.
- **"Old strip" isn't a thing locals say.** They say Fremont Street or downtown.

## Underneath it

Around 1,500 people live in the storm tunnels beneath the city, which Jacob
describes as having its own community and hierarchy. Addiction — gambling,
alcohol and drugs — is a real feature of living somewhere built around all
three, and he is direct that it makes recovery harder.

Rent on the Strip runs at least $1,000 a month for a studio. Prices peaked
around two years before Harry's visit and have flatlined rather than dropped.

## Casinos, honestly

- **The house wins.** Far more people lose than win, and Harry's description of
  the slot floor is a big dopamine machine.
- **Where skill exists**: table games. Blackjack played to basic strategy — off
  a printed card, based on the dealer's up-card — can reduce the house edge to
  roughly half a percent. Video poker is similar.
- **Free drinks are a business decision.** The alcohol costs the casino almost
  nothing and keeps you at the machine.
- **Small wins do the same job.** Two dollars back on a twenty-dollar stake is
  the mechanism, not luck.
- The Mirage closed for around three years shortly after Harry's visit.

## Costs and hotels

- Hotel towers run to around 2,200 rooms each, and you walk through the casino
  floor to reach yours.
- **The resort fee is the thing to watch**: $50 a night on top of the room rate,
  charged for wi-fi and parking, and disclosed only in the terms and conditions
  rather than at booking.
- Pay-per-view adult channels at $9.
- Harry rates American hotel beds the best he has slept in anywhere.

## Fremont Street

Downtown, and where the canopy light show is. Also where the street
photographers work: they will not take your picture without a tip agreed first,
and Harry's word for the exchange is extortion. They earn around $500 on a good
day, work four-hour shifts, and work for someone else rather than themselves.
Performers work the street with very little on, which surprised him.

## Two things to do that aren't gambling

- **The buffet.** Around twenty cuisines, open 7am to 1pm, with crêpes, eggs
  benedict, sushi and a seafood counter made to order. Harry rates it the most
  extravagant he has seen and points out you physically cannot eat across it.
- **A rage room.** Thirty minutes, a baseball bat and a room of things to
  destroy. He found it genuinely therapeutic, and staff told him people with
  relationship problems are a large part of the clientele.

## Harry's tips

- Budget the resort fee, not the room rate.
- Get someone local to walk you off the Strip. Everything worth knowing in this
  video came from that.
- If you're going to gamble, play the games where strategy exists rather than
  the machines.
- Agree the price before the photograph on Fremont Street.

## From the road trip

- **A $18 win at 8am** in a casino on the state line, on his first visit to an
  American one — a dopamine hit he says beat most things.
- **Nevada legalised gambling in 1931**, which is the origin of everything else on
  this page.
- **The 20,000-calorie burger.** At a themed restaurant on the strip: eight
  patties, no sauce and no fries, **free if you weigh over 350 lb** — someone
  qualifies while he is there — and a public spanking if you don't finish. He
  doesn't finish.
- **The Sphere: $2.3 billion**, the largest audio system in the world, **$99** a
  ticket for a 50-minute film that circles the earth. His verdict: $100 is a lot,
  and it is worth it.

## Source

- [What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas 🇺🇸](/videos/ugKRNmqEtCU.md) —
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugKRNmqEtCU
- [30 Days Travelling USA - American Dream or Failure? 🇺🇸](/videos/0ttOIcmgZYk.md) —
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ttOIcmgZYk