Las Vegas built its fame as “Sin City”, a gambling mecca of casinos and late-night vice. But over the past few decades, it has dramatically transformed into a diversified tourism powerhouse.
No longer just about slot machines and card tables, modern Las Vegas is a multi-industry entertainment hub drawing visitors for its luxury amenities, world-class dining, professional sports, and massive conventions.
In fact, gambling now accounts for only about one-third of resort revenues in the area, down from well over half in 1990.
Below, we explore how Las Vegas has reinvented itself in the 21st century, from a one-dimensional casino town into a vibrant all-purpose destination.
Las Vegas has always been a city of spectacle, but it’s also a place of constant change.
In this collection, we go beyond the clichés to explore Las Vegas in full. You’ll find guides for first-time visitors, deep dives into its history and economy, cultural perspectives on its identity, and personal stories that bring the city’s energy to life.
A Multi-Industry Tourism Capital
Las Vegas is a city defined by reinvention. While it once lived on gambling and cheap thrills, the city’s leaders and developers methodically broadened its appeal.
In the 1990s, casinos began adding upscale hotels, shows, and attractions to entice a wider audience. By the 2000s, this strategy paid off – non-gaming sources (like hotels, dining, entertainment, and shopping) now generate over 60% of Strip casino revenue.
In fact, on the Las Vegas Strip in 2022, gaming brought in less than 30% of resort revenues. Travelers today may visit Vegas without placing a single bet, indulging instead in Michelin-quality meals, designer shopping, nightlife, or sports events. This diversification was partly a necessity – as casinos spread across the U.S., Las Vegas had to innovate and elevate its offerings beyond gambling.
The result is a city that calls itself the “Entertainment Capital of the World,” now equally known for concert residencies, festivals, fine arts, and extravagant attractions.
From erupting volcanoes to a giant high-tech Sphere venue, Las Vegas relentlessly adds new draws to keep visitors coming back. Crucially, these efforts worked: annual visitation more than doubled from 20 million in 1990 to over 42 million by 2019 , and despite a pandemic dip, the city expects 40+ million visitors again in 2025.
In short, Las Vegas has outgrown its old image, evolving into a multifaceted tourism capital where gambling is just one piece of a much larger puzzle.
From Buffets to Celebrity Fine Dining
One of the most striking transformations in Las Vegas has been its emergence as a global dining destination. Gone are the days when Vegas food meant cheap buffets designed to keep gamblers fueled. Today, the city boasts an unrivaled concentration of celebrity chefs and award-winning restaurants.
Many observers trace this culinary renaissance back to 1998, when the Bellagio resort opened with a lineup of big-name chefs (such as Jean-Georges Vongerichten, Sirio Maccioni of Le Cirque, Michael Mina, Todd English, and Julian Serrano) who elevated the Strip’s dining scene. From that moment, the standard was set: Las Vegas would no longer settle for second-tier dining.
By the mid-2000s, this trend accelerated. The 2005 debut of Wynn Las Vegas brought in even more star talent and lavish restaurants, while 2006 saw France’s culinary legends Guy Savoy and Joël Robuchon open outposts in Vegas.
Robuchon’s restaurant at MGM Grand even earned three Michelin stars – Vegas’s first and only, during Michelin’s brief foray into the city. These arrivals firmly put Las Vegas on fine dining’s world stage.
In the years since, nearly every major resort has filled its roster with notable chef-driven venues – from Gordon Ramsay’s multiple eateries to Nobu Matsuhisa, Alain Ducasse, Giada De Laurentiis, and beyond.
Las Vegas now hosts prestigious culinary events (in 2023 it became only the second U.S. city to host The World’s 50 Best Restaurants awards ), and its restaurants rack up Michelin stars, Forbes five-star ratings, and James Beard recognitions. The city truly became a “culinary powerhouse, with the most concentrated group of star chefs… of nearly any city”.
Crucially, dining is not just upscale but diverse: visitors can find everything from high-end French and Japanese tasting menus to authentic street tacos and late-night comfort food.
This gastronomic growth also shows up in the numbers – food and beverage spending per visitor has climbed steadily as travelers flock to Vegas specifically to eat and drink well. In short, Las Vegas reinvented itself as a food mecca of the 21st century, turning what used to be an afterthought (the buffet by the slots) into a marquee attraction in its own right.
Retail, Art, and Luxury
Alongside dining, Las Vegas poured energy into luxury retail, art, and indulgent services, reshaping the Strip into a playground for high-end tourism. In the 2000s, a wave of mega-resort projects added shopping promenades that rival the world’s fanciest malls.
Today the city offers nearly 7 million square feet of retail bliss – from the haute couture boutiques at the Shops at Crystals (CityCenter’s dazzling mall anchored by Gucci, Chanel, Hermès and the largest Louis Vuitton store in North America ) to the sprawling Forum Shops at Caesars, which ranks among the top U.S. malls by sales per square foot.
Strolling the Strip now means perusing flagship stores of virtually every luxury brand, often in spectacular architectural settings. (Crystals, for example, is an avant-garde all-glass mall designed by star architects.) Upscale shopping has become such an integral part of Vegas that it’s a draw even for non-gamblers – a chance to combine vacation with a high-end shopping spree in one convenient locale.
The Bellagio set an early example in 1998 by opening a fine art gallery exhibiting works by Monet and Picasso. But the boldest step came with CityCenter in 2009 – a $9 billion development that incorporated the city’s first permanent public art program.
CityCenter’s sprawling campus features a $40+ million art collection, one of the largest corporate art collections in the world. Strolling between hotels there feels like walking through a gallery, with installations by acclaimed artists at every turn – from a towering Henry Moore sculpture in the Crystals mall to Maya Lin’s 84-foot reclaimed silver sculpture above Aria’s lobby.
This infusion of high culture signaled that Vegas was courting an upscale, cosmopolitan audience. Even the city’s skyline became a canvas; for instance, the new MSG Sphere, a colossal globe-shaped venue opened in 2023, is covered in LED screens that display digital art and light shows visible for miles – a blend of art and technology that epitomizes modern Vegas’ wow-factor approach.
Beyond shopping and art, the city invested heavily in luxury services and wellness to cater to visitors seeking pampering over partying. Virtually every resort now boasts an opulent spa, and some are record-breakers – the Canyon Ranch spa at Venetian spans 134,000 square feet with 90 treatment rooms (one of the largest spas in the world) , offering everything from Himalayan salt caves to high-tech “wave” therapies.
Exclusive experiences abound: championship golf courses in the desert, supercar racing tracks, helicopter tours, and VIP concierge services for any whim. Nightlife too went upscale; the Strip’s nightclubs dominate the national rankings, with 8 of the top 10 revenue-generating clubs in the U.S. located in Vegas.
From dayclubs with luxury cabanas to rooftop lounges, these venues attract global DJs and celebrities, further diversifying the entertainment mix. All of these luxurious additions – retail, art, spas, and nightlife – helped Las Vegas shed its bargain-bin image and reposition itself as a premium destination where visitors happily splurge on experiences beyond the casino floor.
Major League Teams and Arenas
Perhaps the most unexpected chapter in Las Vegas’ reinvention is its rise as a professional sports city. For decades, major leagues shunned Vegas due to concerns about gambling and a lack of local fan base. That changed dramatically in the 2010s.
The turning point came in 2017, when the NHL awarded Vegas its first big-league franchise – the expansion Vegas Golden Knights. The team’s instant success (reaching the Stanley Cup Final in its first season and winning the championship in 2023) electrified the city and proved that Las Vegas could indeed support and celebrate a home team.
Hot on its heels, the NFL’s Oakland Raiders relocated to become the Las Vegas Raiders in 2020, moving into the brand-new 65,000-seat Allegiant Stadium. Even though the Raiders’ debut season had no live fans (due to the pandemic), the symbolism was huge: the NFL – long the most cautious league about gambling – had fully embraced Las Vegas.
Since then, the sports momentum has only grown. The city’s WNBA team (the Las Vegas Aces, relocated in 2018) clinched national championships, and Las Vegas began hosting high-profile events from NASCAR races to UFC fights to the NCAA basketball tournaments.
In 2023, the city even lured a Formula 1 Grand Prix to a new street circuit on the Strip, and in February 2024 it hosted Super Bowl LVIII – formerly unthinkable for “Sin City.” Sports have become such a draw that in 2022, sporting events directly generated an estimated $1.8 billion in economic impact from visitors.
Fans attending games spend on hotels, dining and entertainment, boosting the tourism economy. Even if only a small fraction of visitors (around 2% in 2024) come primarily for sports , the presence of teams and events adds significant “additive” spending and marketing value.
As the head of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA) noted, having the NFL and other leagues in town signals that “Vegas is mature… a global city,” helping attract other business and events beyond sports.
The infrastructure for this sports boom has rapidly expanded. The T-Mobile Arena (opened 2016, 20,000 seats) not only gave the Golden Knights a home but also hosts big boxing matches and concerts. Allegiant Stadium, opened in 2020, is a marvel of engineering and now books everything from college championships to international soccer matches.
There’s talk of an NBA-ready arena in the works, and a $1.75 billion Major League Baseball stadium is planned as the Oakland A’s eye a move to Vegas. Beyond the pro leagues, the city is investing in sports at all levels – for example, a project in development called “Hylo Park” will convert two former casino sites into a sports tournament complex with an Olympic-style village for youth sports.
All of this cements Las Vegas as a bona fide sports destination, adding yet another pillar to its tourism industry. What was once the only major U.S. city without a pro team is now home to multiple champions and routinely in the rotation for the nation’s biggest sporting events. In true Vegas fashion, the city essentially gambled on sports – and it hit the jackpot.
Business Tourism Boom
Las Vegas’s transformation isn’t only about leisure – it’s also a juggernaut in business travel and conventions. In fact, the city has long cultivated a parallel identity as the Convention Capital of America, and in the 21st century this segment has grown immensely.
With its abundant hotels, accessible location, and endless entertainment for attendees, Vegas has become a top choice for meetings ranging from small corporate retreats to some of the world’s largest trade shows. The numbers tell the story: In 2024 Las Vegas hosted around 6 million convention and meeting attendees, contributing an estimated $16 billion to the local economy.
These business visitors now make up roughly one-sixth of all Vegas tourists , and they are a lucrative bunch – the average conventioneer spends about 30% more per trip (around $1,600) than the typical leisure visitor. Crucially, conventions fill hotel rooms mid-week, smoothing out the tourism calendar that might otherwise only spike on weekends.
This steady weekday base is what allows Las Vegas to sustain its 150,000+ hotel rooms at high occupancy and support the massive scale of its resorts. As the LVCVA’s CEO puts it, without the meetings industry, “Las Vegas couldn’t look like it does” – the city needs that mid-week 85% occupancy to justify the extravagant resorts it builds.
To maintain its edge, Vegas continually expands and upgrades its convention infrastructure. The Las Vegas Convention Center (LVCC), one of the largest in the world, recently added a $1 billion West Hall in 2021 and is completing a full renovation of its original halls, boosting the center’s capacity to 2.5 million square feet of exhibit space.
Across the city, nearly every major hotel offers dedicated conference facilities, from ballrooms to high-tech expo halls, totaling over 14 million sq. ft. of meeting space region-wide. This arms race has paid off: Las Vegas regularly hosts the biggest shows on the calendar.
These include CES (Consumer Electronics Show), which draws 170,000 attendees each January, automotive industry extravaganzas like SEMA, and global events like Oracle CloudWorld or AWS re:Invent in tech.
The city’s ability to handle huge events was proven when it hosted Formula 1 in 2023 and is now gearing up for the 2024 NFL Draft and Final Four, seamlessly transitioning from casinos to convention floors to race tracks.
The pipeline remains strong – tourism officials predict 2026 could be the busiest convention year ever, thanks to the enhanced facilities and pent-up demand for in-person events.
Conventions have been a stabilizing force as well. Even when leisure travel softens (for example, during economic downturns or summer lulls), large trade shows and corporate meetings keep visitation steady. In mid-2025, overall visitor numbers were down slightly, but convention attendance was actually up ~2% year-on-year , highlighting the resilience of this segment.
Moreover, hosting prestigious events further boosts Las Vegas’s reputation and brings in ancillary investments. It’s a virtuous cycle: more conventions lead to more business-focused amenities (like improved airport capacity and transit links), which in turn attract bigger conventions.
Las Vegas has thus firmly established itself as a business tourism boomtown, proving that it’s not just a place to play, but also a place to make deals, launch products, and network on a grand scale. Vegas means business – literally – and that has been integral to its 21st-century success.
The New Las Vegas
Las Vegas’s reinvention for the twenty-first century is an ongoing story – one of constant adaptation to consumer tastes and economic trends. By broadening its identity from gambling haven to multifaceted destination, the city managed to stay not only relevant but dominant in an era when casinos exist in many states.
The strategy of investing in luxury, culture, sports, and business has clearly paid dividends: Vegas today appeals to virtually every demographic, from foodies and fashionistas to tech executives and sports fans.
Importantly, these newer attractions are additive rather than replacement – visitors can craft a Vegas experience tailored to their interests, whether that’s a gourmet weekend of celebrity chef dinners or a week of back-to-back conventions and nightlife.
This diversification also buffers the city’s economy. For example, if pure gambling revenues dip (as younger generations gamble less), increased spending on entertainment and dining can fill the gap.
Indeed, Las Vegas casinos now often make more from hotel, food, and show revenues combined than from the casino floor – a reversal of the old business model.
Looking ahead, the city shows no signs of slowing down its evolution. Major developments continue to come online, such as the long-awaited Fontainebleau Las Vegas (a 3,700-room luxury resort with its own huge convention center, opened late 2023) and novel attractions like the MSG Sphere.
The Sphere’s massive glowing dome – now an icon of the skyline – underscores how Vegas constantly seeks the “next big thing” to wow visitors. Meanwhile, the push into sports is likely to deepen: a Formula 1 Grand Prix will return annually after its successful launch, and the city is widely rumored to be a top contender for an NBA franchise in coming years.
Such additions would further cement Las Vegas as a year-round, multi-event metropolis. Local leaders are also focused on sustainability and infrastructure to support growth – expanding the airport (which added new international routes as travel rebounded ), improving transit (including a proposed “Vegas Loop” underground transport), and even exploring new industries like tech and medicine to complement tourism.
Ultimately, Las Vegas has proven remarkably adept at rebranding itself for new eras. It leveraged its entertainment DNA to branch out into every realm of leisure and business travel, all while retaining the glitz and escapism that make it unique.
The city that once sold itself on “What happens here, stays here” has shown that it can also be where anything happens – be it a blockbuster prizefight, a foodie pilgrimage, a global trade expo, or an NFL showdown.
This forward-looking, adaptive spirit is what keeps Las Vegas on top. As a local tourism official aptly noted, “Las Vegas isn’t just a city that entertains – it evolves.” And in doing so, it continues to reinvent the very idea of a modern resort city for the twenty-first century.