The ‘Naughty Side’ of Las Vegas: An $8 Billion a Year Enterprise
Travel Blog • Michael Yessis • 05.11.07 | 2:23 PM ET
That astronomical figure comes from a titillating look at Las Vegas’s adult entertainment offerings in USA Today. It’s an estimate from Sin City’s chamber of commerce, and, if accurate, it’s more than the gambling haul on the Las Vegas Strip in 2006. Analysts put that at an estimated $6.5 billion. I was surprised by the staggering figure, but perhaps I shouldn’t be considering the ubiquity and success of the “What happens here, stays here” ad campaign. “Our vice squad is busy,” officer Martin Wright, a spokesman for the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, tells USA Today’s Kitty Bean Yancey.
More from Yancey’s story:
Strip clubs, where the $20 lap dance is lapped up by conventioneers and bachelor partiers, are requisite stops for men on their own, says Michael Tomes, vice president of VegasVIP.com. “Gambling is secondary now,” he says.
Wayne Bridge, CEO of the Sin City Chamber of Commerce—which encompasses adult entertainment businesses not affiliated with the more staid Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce—says an estimated third of convention-goers visit nearly three dozen strip clubs.
As we’ve mentioned before, the “What happens here, stays here” campaign has a dark side.
Photo of the Las Vegas Strip by mandj98, via Flickr (Creative Commons)
Related on World Hum:
* Macau Surpasses Las Vegas as Gambling Mecca
* Las Vegas (Who Else?) Leads in U.S. Tourism Ad Spending
* R.I.P. Hal Rothman, Sin City Scholar
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Michael Yessis is the cofounder and coeditor-in-chief of World Hum.
