50 Fun Facts About Las Vegas Strip

Which resort sits at the Las Vegas Strip's southern end?

Mandalay Bay is the last resort heading south on the Strip, which, despite its name, lies outside the Las Vegas city limits.

The Strip lies just outside the Las Vegas city limits in which two unincorporated towns?

Paradise and Winchester grew out of a town the county created in 1950 at casino owners' urging, so the city of Las Vegas could not annex the Strip and tax it.

What did Clark County begin building at the Strip's busiest intersections in the 1990s?

Footbridges lift walkers clear of the traffic, which is safer for them and quicker for drivers; the first set went up where Tropicana Avenue crosses the Strip.

Travel guides stretch the Strip to the Strat, but which resort does Clark County call its northern end?

The Sahara stands at Sahara Avenue, the line between the county and the city of Las Vegas; the Strat lies north of it, inside the city limits, so officially it is off the Strip.

Which resort opened in 1941, five years before the Flamingo, as the first on what became the Strip?

El Rancho Vegas lured night drivers off the desert highway with its trademark sign, a tower topped by a windmill with neon-lit blades.

What was Las Vegas Boulevard South previously called?

Highway 91 carried the tourists driving in from Los Angeles, so the first resort builders chose its empty desert roadside over downtown, where the casinos then were.

The Las Vegas Strip is said to take its name from a nightlife stretch of which Los Angeles-area boulevard?

Sunset Boulevard's Sunset Strip was old ground for Guy McAfee, a Los Angeles vice cop turned casino owner, and the story goes that car lights along the desert highway reminded him of it.

Which mobster took over the unfinished Flamingo and opened it in December 1946?

Bugsy Siegel pushed out the man who dreamed it up and let costs balloon to $6 million; within six months of opening he was shot dead in Beverly Hills by a gunman never identified.

Billy Wilkerson, who dreamed up the Flamingo, ran which show-business trade paper?

The Hollywood Reporter's publisher was a compulsive gambler who wanted a casino of his own, but he ran out of money mid-build and his mob partners forced him out.

What distinction does the Flamingo hold on the Las Vegas Strip?

Oldest continuously operating resort on the Strip: the Flamingo was only the third to open there, in December 1946, but it has outlasted both of the resorts that beat it.

Which musical duo held an 11-year residency at the Flamingo that ended in 2019?

Donny and Marie Osmond were booked for six weeks in 2008 and stayed 11 years, long enough for the Flamingo to rename its showroom after them.

The Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign spells 'Welcome' inside which coins?

Silver dollars frame the letters of a sign that isn't in Las Vegas at all: it stands in the boulevard's median, miles south of the city limits.

Why can anyone print the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign on souvenirs?

Never copyrighted: Betty Willis, who designed the sign for Western Neon, is said to have called it her gift to the city.

What message is written on the north-facing side of the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign?

Drive Carefully, Come Back Soon faces drivers leaving town; so many visitors dodged traffic to reach the sign in the road's median that the county built a small car park beside it.

The Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign is a showpiece of which mid-century design style?

Googie loved exaggerated shapes and sharp angles: the sign's designer crowned it with a star and chose the stretched-diamond shape so that it would be instantly recognisable.

Which motorsport series began racing down the Las Vegas Strip under floodlights in November 2023?

Formula One's first practice there was abandoned when a loose water valve cover wrecked Carlos Sainz's Ferrari, and the next session ran until 4am in front of empty grandstands.

Which Strip resort, opened in 2010, has a three-level bar built inside a giant crystal chandelier?

The Cosmopolitan opened in the hands of Deutsche Bank, which took the half-built resort over when its developers defaulted on their loan and ran it until 2014.

Caesars Palace opened in 1966 on land rented from which future casino mogul?

Kirk Kerkorian paid $960,000 for the land in 1962 and, rather than build on it himself, rented it to Jay Sarno, the man who created Caesars Palace.

Which stunt performer crashed jumping the Caesars Palace fountains on 31 December 1967?

Evel Knievel cleared the fountains but lost the bike on landing and broke his pelvis; the crash made his name, and in 1989 his son Robbie tried the same jump and landed it.

Which high-stakes game was Frank Sinatra playing at Caesars Palace in 1970 when an executive pulled a gun on him?

Baccarat limits started it: refused higher stakes and more credit, Sinatra rowed with executive Sanford Waterman, who drew a gun, and the singer walked out on Caesars mid-engagement.

The Colosseum at Caesars Palace was specially built for which singer's 2003 show?

Celine Dion's show ran there from 2003 to 2007, and its success made the room a magnet for stars: Elton John, Cher and Bette Midler all followed with residencies of their own.

Which venue's owners built the Sphere?

Madison Square Garden's owners unveiled it in 2018 as the MSG Sphere and promised a 2020 opening; it arrived three years late, in September 2023.

Which singer staged his live comeback in 1969 at the International Hotel, later the Westgate, and played there until 1976?

Elvis Presley was only the second act booked there: Barbra Streisand opened the showroom, and he followed a few weeks later with the first of hundreds of shows over seven years.

After the original MGM Grand's 1980 fire, what did Nevada make high-rise hotels install?

Fire sprinklers were missing from the casino the blaze tore through; the law that followed reached back to buildings already standing, so every older high-rise had to retrofit them.

Which resort's 1989 opening is regarded as the start of the mega-resort era?

The Mirage was built with Wall Street junk bonds, and its instant success sent rivals racing to build giant themed resorts of their own.

Which magic duo performed at Steve Wynn's volcano-fronted resort for nearly 14 years from 1990?

Siegfried and Roy's run ended in October 2003 when a white tiger seized Roy Horn by the neck mid-show and dragged him off stage; he survived, but the show never reopened.

When the volcano-fronted resort closed in July 2024, what name was it slated to reopen under?

Hard Rock Las Vegas was planned around a guitar-shaped hotel tower rising where the volcano stood; its operator, Hard Rock International, is owned by Florida's Seminole Tribe.

Which Cirque du Soleil show, launched at Treasure Island in 1993, is the company's longest-running?

Mystère was Cirque du Soleil's first permanent show after years of touring productions, and its success opened the way for O at the Bellagio and a string of Las Vegas residencies.

Which artist made the 2,000-piece ceiling of flowers in the Bellagio lobby?

Dale Chihuly said the glass piece kept growing because every time Steve Wynn saw it he wanted more; it hangs in a resort whose $1.6 billion cost set a record for the Strip.

The Bellagio is themed after a village on the shores of which lake?

Como: Steve Wynn had planned a French-style resort called Beau Rivage, then saw the lakeside village of Bellagio and started over, saving the French name for a casino he later built in Mississippi.

The Fountains of Bellagio's designers opened a bigger fountain in 2009 in which city?

Dubai's fountain came from WET, the firm that invented the compressed-air water cannons behind the Bellagio show, where the tallest jets now reach 460 feet.

WET, builder of the Fountains of Bellagio, was founded by three veterans of which company?

Disney employed all three of WET's founders as special-effects designers; one of them, Mark Fuller, designed the leaping-water fountain at Epcot before they set up on their own in 1983.

Which historic hotel was imploded in 1996 to make way for the Venetian?

The Sands went out on film: with demolition already planned, the makers of Con Air crashed their convict plane into its front before the tower itself was imploded in November 1996.

Which Rat Pack film was shot in Las Vegas in 1960?

Ocean's 11 was fitted around the stars' stage work: during the Las Vegas shoot they were also playing two shows a night in the Copa Room.

Which billionaire bought the Rat Pack's home resort in 1967, one of a string of Las Vegas hotels he snapped up?

Howard Hughes's new managers cut off Frank Sinatra's casino credit; the row ended with a casino boss knocking the caps off the singer's front teeth, and Sinatra took his act to Caesars Palace.

Which Strip resort's sportsbook was opened by Frank 'Lefty' Rosenthal, the model for Robert De Niro's role in Casino?

Stardust was the film's Tangiers in all but name: a 1970s skim sent millions in uncounted cash to Midwest mob bosses, and Rosenthal, never charged, was banned from Nevada casinos for life.

The Tropicana was demolished in 2024 to make way for a stadium for which MLB team?

The Athletics' ballpark needed the land, so the Tropicana, the 'Tiffany of the Strip' since 1957, was brought down in about 22 seconds in October 2024 after a send-off of drones and fireworks.

Which Strip casino opened in 1968 without a single hotel room?

Circus Circus was Jay Sarno's follow-up to Caesars Palace, with acrobats performing high above the tables, but it struggled until a hotel tower gave gamblers somewhere to stay in 1972.

Which Strip resort fires the Sky Beam, a shaft of light visible to airline pilots far from Las Vegas?

Luxor's beam, shot from the tip of its pyramid since 1993, became an accidental ecosystem: moths swarm in the light, bats come to eat the moths, and owls come for the bats.

Which arena, opened in 2016 behind New York-New York on the Strip, is the home ice of the Vegas Golden Knights?

T-Mobile Arena was built with private money and no team to play in it; within three months of its opening, the NHL gave Las Vegas the city's first major-league franchise.

Which Strip resort was the world's largest hotel from its 1990 opening until the MGM Grand took the title?

Excalibur has run a jousting dinner show since opening day, with the meal served medieval-style, without cutlery; Guinness handed its rooms record to the MGM Grand in 1993.

The current MGM Grand opened in 1993 with a theme based on which film?

The Wizard of Oz gave the resort an Emerald City with animatronic Dorothy, Scarecrow and Tin Man; new managers ripped it out within three years for a nightclub and slot machines, and revenue jumped.

A US stamp mistakenly showed which New York-New York replica?

The Statue of Liberty 'forever' stamp was designed from a photo of the Las Vegas copy; its sculptor sued the Postal Service, and in 2018 a judge awarded him $3.5 million.

Wynn Las Vegas was built on the site of which classic resort, opened in 1950?

The Desert Inn threw a week of parties for its 50th anniversary in April 2000; days later Steve Wynn bought it, and by the end of August he had closed it for good.

Three legs of the Paris Las Vegas Eiffel Tower stand inside which part of the resort?

The gaming floor has three of the tower's legs planted in it, beside the sports book and a bar named after Gustave Eiffel, so riders to the top of the 540-foot copy go up through the roof.

Which tower is the only observation tower in the Western Hemisphere taller than the Strat?

The CN Tower in Toronto is family: the Strat's tower was designed by Ned Baldwin, an architect who had worked on the Canadian giant two decades earlier.

Which wheel, the record-holder since 2008, did the High Roller top by nine feet in 2014 to become the world's tallest?

The Singapore Flyer lost its crown by a deliberate nine feet: the High Roller's builders made sure of the record, which also put it 107 feet above the London Eye.

Which band opened the Sphere in September 2023 with a 40-show residency?

U2 played the run without drummer Larry Mullen Jr., who was recovering from surgery; it was the first time the band had performed without him, and Dutchman Bram van den Berg sat in.

Mandalay Bay opened in 1999 on the site of which former hotel-casino?

The Hacienda flew in its own gamblers on a private fleet of airliners in its early years, and it went out with a bang, imploded on live television on New Year's Eve 1996.

Which Vegas fixture did the Strip's very first resort popularise in the 1940s?

The all-you-can-eat buffet began there as a late-night 'chuck wagon' spread for hungry gamblers, and other Las Vegas resorts went on to make it standard.