Las Vegas , NEVADA Hotel Deals, Vacation packages & Hotel Reservations -
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Shimmering from the desert haze of Nevada like a latter-day El Dorado, Las Vegas is the most dynamic, spectacular city on earth. At the start of the twentieth century, it didn't even exist; at the start of the twenty-first, it's home to well over one million people, with enough newcomers arriving to need a new school every month.
Las Vegas is not like other cities. No city in history has so explicitly valued the needs of visitors above those of its own population. All its growth has been fueled by tourism, but the tourists haven't spoiled the "real" city; there is no real city. Las Vegas doesn't have fascinating little-known neighborhoods, and it's not a place where visitors can go off the beaten track to have more authentic experiences. Instead, the whole thing is completely self-referential; the reason Las Vegas boasts the vast majority of the world's largest hotels is that around thirty-seven million tourists each year come to see the hotels themselves.
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Climate And When To GoLas Vegas is at the heart of the hottest, harshest desert in North America, and so receives less than four inches of rain (10cm) per year. Temperatures, however, vary enormously, with daytime maximums averaging over 100°F (38°C) in July and August, and night-time minimums dropping below freezing in December and January. The midsummer heat on the Strip is unbearable, making it impossible to walk any distance during the day, so the ideal months to visit are April, May, September and October. Hotel swimming pools tend to be closed between October and March inclusive GAMBLINGGambling remains the bedrock of the Las Vegas experience. At most recent count, 28 other US states had joined Nevada in offering commercial casinos, and all except two had legalized some form of gambling, but thanks to its colossal volume of business, Las Vegas still does it better than the rest. Ninety percent of visitors to the city gamble, with an average budget of $500, and in the end everything else is just frippery; it's the gambling that makes every flourish possible. The shows and restaurants, tigers and volcanoes - no matter how profitable any might be - are all just designed to make you stick around longer and spend more money on the slots and tables. While the casinos these days prefer to talk about "gaming" rather than gambling, no one plays for fun alone. It's the gut-wrenching excitement of staking your own hard cash in pursuit of a fortune that keeps the tension at fever pitch. Most visitors have their own preferred form of gambling, with the three main choices being table games such as blackjack or craps, played in the public gaze and surrounded by glamorous trimmings; slot machines , a more private pleasure in which the potential winnings are enormous, and you're spared the fear of not seeming au fait with the rules; and sports betting , with its hyped-up atmosphere and scope for proving that you know more than the bookies. The fact that the gambling industry is still booming is a credit to the casinos' ability to change with the times. During the first few decades of Las Vegas's supremacy, the typical gambler was male and likely to be familiar with a wide range of card games thanks to years spent in military service. Slots and other machines, however, overtook the tables from 1983 onwards, and they now generate around 65 percent of Nevada's gaming revenue. In the face of the large proportion of modern visitors who see casino games as complicated and intimidating, the casinos are desperate to make gambling as easy, user-friendly and innocuous as possible. All offer free lessons, instructional videos on their in-room TVs, and the like. On the surface, those well-dressed and welcoming dealers make things seem democratic and casual, but all that deference serves in fact to make anyone who sits down at the tables feel like part of an exclusive and sophisticated elite. |
GETTING MARRIEDWell over a hundred thousand marriages are performed in Las Vegas each year. Having a Vegas wedding has become a byword for tongue-in-cheek chic, and there are indeed drive-thru chapels where bride and groom do no more than roll down their car windows before being serenaded on their way by Elvis himself. What's more surprising, however, is that most marriages in the city seem to be deeply formal affairs . Both the casinos and a horde of independent wedding chapels compete to offer elaborate and expensive ceremonies with all the traditional trimmings, from white gowns and black limousines, to garters and boutonniers. The happy couples are more likely to have saved and planned long in advance than to have succumbed to a spur-of-the-moment impulse. You don't have to be a local resident or take a blood test to get wed in Las Vegas. Assuming you're both at least eighteen years old and carrying picture ID, and neither of you is already married - US citizens are expected to know their Social Security Numbers - simply turn up at the Clark County Marriage License Bureau , downtown at 200 S Third St (Mon-Thurs 8am-midnight, and continuously from 8am on Fri to midnight on Sun; tel 455-4415, ), and buy a marriage license for $50 cash.
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