Upon recent reflection, I’ve discovered that Las Vegas truly is a place that could have been drawn up in a fictional piece of literature or the setting for a hollywood blockbuster. If you’ve ever been, you know just how outside of the real world it can be at times. If you haven’t, I am going to try my best to paint you the picture (or atleast the one I know of [which is probably even on the tamer side than some devout Vegas goers]).

Enter a tall, bright light, hot, industrialized city plopped in the state of Nevada. Sure, there’s towns and civilization out there (shoutout to my roommate KC who grew up over there), but you have to think the idea to plop this crazy international attraction in the middle of the desert is a strange thing to dwell on. Just imagine nothing and then snap your fingers and you have big, bright buildings that never close down. I am sure it wasn’t built overnight, but this ideal alone can kind of get the gears turning. 

The second thing that really just makes you feel like you’re living in some sort of screwed up netflix series is the rules-or lack of them. It seems like just about everything is legal in Las vegas. Walk around with beers or open containers of hard liquor on the streets? Check. Having people trying to blatantly sell you all the drugs under the sun as soon as you exit your hotel and walk on those same streets? Check. Having go-go girls dressed up waiting to handcuff you and give a good time for a monetary payment? Check. Combine all of these along with the strange characters that inhabit the vegas streets and you can really easily see how things could go astray quickly. As all this is going down, there are still cops regularly arresting people and breaking up street fights.

Now on the polar opposite end of the spectrum-gambling is very legal but heavily monitored. There’s big money floating around even the common folk tables, and then there’s even the high roller zones where people put up stupid amounts of cash just to take a ride with luck and probability. In the casinos, rules are not meant to be broken. You have to know how to act. No phones on the table. Dealers switch every 15 to 30 minutes. It’s a well oiled machine and it’s kept that way so the gambler rarely has the upper hand on the casino. Which tends to work out well in their favor. The streets can be lawless, but the casino keeps things very buttoned up.

No matter the regulations, Las Vegas is a gambler’s dream. If you fly in, get ready to hit the slots at the airport, because there’s plenty there and you know you have time to kill while waiting for a cab or an uber. If you drive it, from where I live you spend 4 hours give or take with not much scenery just to arrive and most likely make that initial bet. You gotta spend money to make money here. And whatever money you have, you have to be very comfortable losing it all. Play it safe or suffer the consequences. 

These are all the attractions that pretty much come free of charge, and then you have to factor in the mecca Las Vegas is in the entertainment industry. Big shot DJs, rappers, and comedians all have residencies (or pretty much hotels they call home) in which they get paid boatloads of cash to perform. Either during the day, during the night, weekend or weekday, there’s a party going on. Like most things in vegas, you’re going to have to pay the premium, whether that’s a cover (girls get in free), a stupid expensive mix drink, or just something going wrong and throwing a wrench in the system. 

It’s easy to see how some people love this place. If you want my personal take on vegas-a weekend is typically enough. But I could see how you could get sucked in and stay a while. There’s just something in the air that’s different. I’m an early to bed and early to rise kinda guy, but in vegas I push the bedtime back a little bit and take in the big bright lights.