60 free Las Vegas trivia questions with answers — geography quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
55 free Las Vegas trivia questions with answers. Las Vegas has more stories per square mile than any city in America, and this quiz gets to most of them: the Spanish name that means 'the meadows', the Mormon fort, the 1905 railroad land auction, the year Nevada legalised gambling, the mobsters who built the first Strip resorts, and the tycoons who replaced them with volcanoes, pyramids and dancing fountains. There are questions on Elvis, the Rat Pack, Liberace and Siegfried & Roy, on the Golden Knights, Raiders and Aces, and on the films from Ocean's Eleven to The Hangover that made the city a character. It starts with things any visitor knows and gets to details only a local or a Vegas obsessive will have: which casino has no apostrophe and why, how many people the MGM Grand fire killed, which resort had a lion in the lobby, and what the airport is now called. It works for a bachelor-party bus, a themed trivia night or a solo test of how much you really know about Sin City. Every answer has been checked against Wikipedia and reference sources, and each question shows its explanation and citation after you answer.
30 of 60 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What does the Spanish name 'Las Vegas' mean in English?
The meadows
The name described the fertile lowlands around natural springs that travellers on the Old Spanish Trail found in the desert.
Q 02Las Vegas is the county seat of which Nevada county?
Clark
It is the most populous city in the state, though most of the famous casinos technically sit outside the city limits.
Q 03Which unincorporated town holds most of the Las Vegas Strip, which lies outside the city?
Paradise
A 1950 attempt by the city's mayor to annex the Strip failed, and casino owners have kept it in county territory ever since.
Q 04Guy McAfee nicknamed Las Vegas Boulevard's casino row after which road in Los Angeles?
Sunset Strip
Guy McAfee ran the Pair-o-Dice Club, the first casino on the highway, and borrowed the name from Hollywood.
Q 05In what year did Nevada legalise casino gambling and cut divorce residency to six weeks?
1931
The same year saw construction begin on the Hoover Dam tunnels, bringing thousands of workers to the area.
Q 06Las Vegas was founded as a city in 1905 when land was auctioned beside what?
The railroad tracks
The 110 acres beside the Union Pacific line became downtown, and the city was formally incorporated in 1911.
Q 07Which religious group built a fort at Las Vegas in 1855 on the road between Salt Lake City and California?
Mormons
The fort was abandoned in 1857, and its remains still stand at Las Vegas Boulevard and Washington Avenue.
Q 08Downtown's Fremont Street is named after which American explorer?
John C. Frémont
The street was home to a string of Las Vegas firsts, including its first hotel in 1906 and its first telephone in 1907.
Q 09The Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign was designed in 1959 by whom?
Betty Willis
She never copyrighted the design, calling it her gift to the city, which is why it appears on so much merchandise.
Q 10The white circles across the top of the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign represent what?
Silver dollars
They are a nod to Nevada's nickname, the Silver State.
Q 11The Hoover Dam sits on the Colorado River on the border between Nevada and which other state?
Arizona
It was dedicated by Franklin Roosevelt in 1935 and finished more than two years ahead of schedule.
Q 12What is the name of the vast reservoir created by the Hoover Dam?
Mead
It is the largest reservoir in the United States by water capacity, up to 112 miles long when full.
Q 13The town built to house Hoover Dam workers, about 30 miles from Las Vegas, is called what?
Boulder City
President Hoover ordered dam work to start early, so the town was still being built while construction began.
Q 21The Bellagio, opened in 1998, is themed after a village on which Italian lake?
Como
Steve Wynn built it on the site of the old Dunes, and its fountains use 1,214 nozzles to shoot water up to 460 feet.
Q 22The Luxor pyramid's tip fires a beam into the night sky. How is that beam described?
The most powerful man-made light on Earth
The 30-storey pyramid, opened in 1993, also contains the world's largest atrium by volume.
Q 23The Eiffel Tower replica at Paris Las Vegas is built at what scale?
One half
It rises about 540 feet, and the resort also copies the Arc de Triomphe, the Louvre and the Paris Opera House.
Q 14Which mobster took over the building of the Flamingo, which opened in December 1946?
Bugsy Siegel
The project had been started by Billy Wilkerson, founder of The Hollywood Reporter, and its budget ballooned from $1 million to $6 million.
Q 15The Flamingo's mob builder was shot dead in June 1947 in whose Beverly Hills mansion?
Virginia Hill's
His partners believed he or his girlfriend had skimmed about $1 million from the Flamingo's construction budget.
Q 16Which billionaire moved into the Desert Inn in 1966, refused to leave, and simply bought the hotel?
Howard Hughes
He went on to buy the Sands, Frontier, Silver Slipper, Castaways and Landmark too, helping push the mob out of Vegas ownership.
Q 17Which resort's name deliberately has no apostrophe, so that every guest could feel like an emperor?
Caesars Palace
It opened in 1966 with a loan from the Teamsters pension fund, and Evel Knievel famously crashed jumping its fountains on New Year's Eve 1967.
Q 18Which stuntman crashed jumping the fountains of a Roman-themed Strip resort on December 31, 1967?
Evel Knievel
He convinced owner Jay Sarno he could clear 140 feet, hit the top of the safety ramp and landed in the Dunes car park with a fractured pelvis.
Q 19Steve Wynn's 1989 Strip megaresort was famous for what free attraction out front?
An erupting volcano
Its success set off the 1990s building boom; the resort closed in July 2024 to be rebuilt as Hard Rock Las Vegas.
Q 20Which magic duo headlined at Wynn's volcano-fronted resort from 1990 until a tiger attack ended their show?
Siegfried & Roy
The German-born pair had given 5,750 performances with their white lions and white tigers when Roy Horn was critically injured on stage.
Q 24When the MGM Grand opened in 1993 with more than 5,000 rooms, its dominant theme was which film?
The Wizard of Oz
It was the largest hotel in the world at the time; the Oz theming was stripped out in a renovation that began in 1996.
Q 25The 1980 fire at the original MGM Grand (the Horseshoe since 2022) killed how many people?
85
Most of the 85 died from smoke inhalation in the hotel tower, and the disaster led to sweeping changes in fire safety codes. The property became Bally's in 1986 and the Horseshoe in 2022.
Q 26The Excalibur was the world's largest hotel when it opened in 1990. What is its theme?
A medieval castle
Its designers toured European castles for ideas, and it held the size record only until the MGM Grand opened three years later.
Q 27The Venetian was built on the site of which demolished Rat Pack-era casino?
The Sands
Sheldon Adelson opened it in 1999 with canals and gondola rides; the old resort had hosted Sinatra and the Rat Pack in its Copa Room.
Q 28At 1,149 feet, what distinction does the spire at The Strat hold?
Tallest observation tower in the United States
Only Toronto's CN Tower is taller in the Western Hemisphere; the top holds a revolving restaurant and thrill rides.
Q 29The Fremont Street Experience, opened in 1995, is best known for what overhead feature?
A giant LED canopy
The barrel-vault canopy runs about four blocks, and every show starts by switching off all the casino lights beneath it.
Q 30Vegas Vic, the neon cowboy erected in 1951, waves from the front of which downtown casino?
The Pioneer
The winking, cigarette-smoking figure was a break from text-based neon signs and became a symbol of the city.