Is Las Vegas Still About Gambling or Something Else?

For decades, gambling was the city’s lifeblood. The activity that paid the bills and drew crowds from around the world. But today’s Las Vegas paints a more complex picture.

Visitors are just as likely to flock there for superstar concerts, world-class restaurants, big-ticket sporting events, or luxury shopping as they are to pull a slot handle.

Has the identity of “Sin City” shifted? We examine whether the city is still primarily about gambling or if it has reinvented itself as something else entirely.

The Decline of Gambling Revenue

In the mid-20th century, gambling was Las Vegas. From the 1950s through the early 1990s, roughly 75% of an average casino’s revenue came from the gaming floor.

Casino operators freely subsidized hotel rooms, buffets, and drinks for gamblers, confident that losses at the tables would cover the costs. Those days are effectively over. In recent years, the city’s revenue mix has flipped – nongambling sources now account for around 75% of Strip resort revenue, with gambling providing only about a quarter.

For example, in a recent quarter MGM Resorts’ Las Vegas properties made just 23% of their revenue from gaming, and similar ratios held at Caesars and Wynn resorts. In broader terms, gambling’s share of total resort income in the Vegas area has plummeted from about 61.5% in 1990 to 34% in 2024.

Several factors explain this steep decline. One is competition: as casino gambling spread across the United States (tribal casinos, riverboats, Atlantic City and beyond), Las Vegas could no longer rely on being America’s default gambling destination. “If you wanted to gamble, you didn’t need to go to Las Vegas,” notes UNLV history professor Michael Green, explaining why the city had to broaden its appeal.

Another factor is corporate strategy. In 1989, developer Steve Wynn opened The Mirage with the then-radical idea that a Vegas resort could be a luxury attraction beyond its casino.

The Mirage featured a tropical oasis theme, fine dining, and high-end entertainment – and it proved enormously successful. Following that model, casinos across the Strip began investing in gourmet restaurants, spectacular shows, nightclubs, shopping malls and other amenities, shifting their business models away from pure gambling.

Over time, room rates and dining tabs ballooned – the average hotel rate in Vegas has climbed over 50% since 2019 – while the old perks for gamblers (like free rooms or cheap buffets) faded.

Today, the gaming floor is no longer the profit center it once was, which is evident in how visitors are treated: “Casinos used to entice you with cheap rooms and food to get you to gamble. Those days are over,” observes one long-time Vegas observer.

With gambling profits less dominant, many casinos now charge for parking, tack on nightly “resort fees,” and tighten the odds on games – practices that would have been rare in the old era of subsidized gambling. Unsurprisingly, the number of slot machines on the Strip has actually decreased since the 1990s, and some veteran visitors lament that “Old Vegas is gone”.

The Rise of Entertainment and Dining

If gambling dollars no longer drive the bus, what does? Over the past two to three decades, Las Vegas has aggressively reinvented itself as an all-purpose entertainment capital, with an emphasis on spectacles, cuisine, and nightlife. Headliner shows and concerts have proliferated up and down the Strip.

In the 1990s, following The Mirage’s lead, resorts realized that big-name entertainment could turn a profit in its own right – not just serve as a loss leader for the casino. Soon the city was hosting long-running production shows (think Cirque du Soleil’s multiple resident shows) and lucrative celebrity residencies by the likes of Celine Dion, Elton John, Adele and other stars.

The old Vegas lounge acts and variety shows made way for arena-scale performances and ticket prices that rival Broadway’s. As one historian put it, Las Vegas “is a dining and entertainment town now” even if gambling still matters.

Every major resort features its own nightclubs, theaters or arenas, and these venues are often packed with visitors who might never play a single hand of blackjack during their stay.

Hand-in-hand with entertainment, dining has become a cornerstone of modern Vegas. The city that once trumpeted $5 buffets now boasts a roster of celebrity chefs and Michelin-starred restaurants to rival New York or Paris. This shift began in the early ’90s, when Wolfgang Puck’s Spago opened in Caesars Palace, proving that fine dining could thrive on the Strip.

From there, a flood of gourmet eateries followed – today, names like Joël Robuchon, Gordon Ramsay, and José Andrés grace the casino corridors. The bet paid off handsomely: food and beverage have become huge revenue sources for resorts, and visitor spending on dining and drinking hit record highs in recent years.

In 2024, the average Vegas visitor spent over $615 on food and drink per trip, an all-time peak and a 9% increase from the prior year. This is on par with – or even higher than – what many visitors budget for gambling.

In fact, younger travelers now spend nearly as much on dining as on gambling during a Vegas stay: one analysis found Millennials spent about $637 on dining versus $768 on gaming on average, and Gen Z visitors spent roughly $541 on dining compared to $575 on gambling. These figures underscore a generational preference for experiences over bets.

Other amenities and diversions have likewise expanded to capture tourist dollars. High-end shopping is now a major draw – the Strip is lined with luxury retail promenades like the Forum Shops at Caesars and the Shops at Crystals.

Per-trip spending on shopping has climbed more than 13% year-over-year, reaching about $280 per visitor in 2024. Upscale spas and pools, daytime “beach clubs” with celebrity DJs, and attractions like the High Roller observation wheel or the new immersive Sphere venue all contribute to an atmosphere where there’s always something to do beyond the casino floor.

In short, Las Vegas has diversified into a multi-faceted entertainment hub, selling spectacle and indulgence in many forms – not just the thrill of a jackpot. As one industry executive noted, the big casino companies deliberately invested in “food and beverage and amenities” over the cheap-and-cheerful approach, and visitors have “rewarded those companies” with their business. Gambling hasn’t disappeared, of course, but it’s increasingly one option on a menu of Vegas experiences rather than the main event.

A New Age of Sports in the City of Lights

Perhaps the most striking recent evolution of Las Vegas is its emergence as a bona fide sports destination. For most of its history, major professional sports leagues shunned Las Vegas (partly due to concerns about gambling).

That taboo was shattered in 2017 when the NHL’s Vegas Golden Knights debuted as the city’s first big-league franchise. The success of the Golden Knights – who quickly won a devoted local and tourist fanbase – opened the door for more.

The NFL’s Raiders relocated from Oakland to Las Vegas in 2020, taking up residence in the brand-new 65,000-seat Allegiant Stadium. In 2023, the city hosted its first ever Formula 1 Grand Prix, a high-octane street race looping right through the Strip.

And more is on the horizon: an MLB franchise (the Athletics) is planning a move to Vegas with a state-of-the-art ballpark expected in the coming years. Suddenly, a city once defined by casinos now boasts gleaming sports arenas and is hosting marquee events like the Super Bowl (which Las Vegas landed for 2024).

Local leaders see sports as a key pillar of Las Vegas’s future. The influx of teams and events is drawing new types of visitors and revenue. In fiscal 2022, sports events generated over $1.8 billion in direct economic output from out-of-town visitors in the Vegas area.

Fans traveling to see games or events are also spending more: among visitors who attended a sporting event, the average sports-related spending per trip nearly tripled between 2019 and 2024 (from about $129 to $357). This suggests that while sports attendance is still a secondary activity for most tourists, those who do partake are making it a significant (and lucrative) part of their Vegas experience.

Accordingly, casinos and developers are incorporating sports more into their offerings – from sportsbooks and sports-themed entertainment districts to partnerships with teams.

One major casino group, for instance, is redeveloping the former Tropicana site into a complex that will include the new baseball stadium alongside a resort, emphasizing retail and entertainment rather than gaming alone. “It’s not lost on us that Vegas is attracting many more non-gaming dollars,” says Soo Kim, chairman of Bally’s Corporation, explaining the rationale for these new sports-centric projects.

That said, it’s important to keep the sports boom in perspective. Surveys indicate that only a small fraction of Vegas visitors come primarily for sports. In 2024, just 2% of visitors said a sporting event was the main reason for their trip.

Most tourists still cite vacation, entertainment or other leisure motives above attending a game. Major sports events can spike visitation during special weekends (the city saw a surge for the F1 race and expects similar for the Super Bowl), but on a regular basis sports remain more of a complementary attraction than Vegas’s core identity.

Still, the mere presence of pro teams adds to the city’s cachet. Hosting Monday Night Football or an NHL playoff series in Las Vegas would have been unthinkable a generation ago – now it’s reality. In the broader evolution of Las Vegas, the embrace of sports further cements the idea that the city is about entertainment in all forms, not just casinos.

As the chief of the Las Vegas tourism authority remarked, having the NFL and other leagues in town sends a signal that “Vegas is mature… it’s a global city” – one with a lot more to offer than the roll of dice.

Changing Visitor Demographics

These shifts in attractions go hand-in-hand with shifts in who is coming to Las Vegas and what they want from a trip. The visitor demographics in Vegas have trended younger and more diverse in interests.

Millennials and Gen Z are now the dominant segments of the tourist pool – nearly half of visitors in 2024 were millennials (ages 28–43), far outnumbering the retirees who once were a staple of mid-week casino floors. In fact, the share of senior visitors has sharply declined: only about 6% of Vegas visitors in 2024 were 65 or older, down from 19% in 2019.

The average visitor age has dropped into the early 40s. This younger crowd has different tastes. Many don’t visit because of gambling, they simply gamble a bit while there – a crucial distinction noted by industry observers. With legal casinos and betting apps now available closer to home, younger travelers aren’t drawn to Vegas just to play blackjack.

Instead, they come seeking “immersive experiences” – trendy restaurants, music festivals, Instagrammable nightclubs, e-sports tournaments, pool parties with celebrity DJs – and see gambling as an add-on entertainment rather than the centerpiece.

Spending patterns reflect this evolution. Younger visitors allocate more of their budget to food, drink, and entertainment and relatively less to gambling than previous generations.

They also tend to be more affluent: a recent survey showed a record 64% of Vegas tourists in 2024 had household incomes over $100,000, up from just 28% in 2019. Las Vegas has, in effect, “gone upscale,” attracting professionals and even families seeking high-end fun. Family travel saw an uptick during the pandemic recovery, with more visitors bringing kids along, though that trend has moderated as of 2024.

These wealthier guests are spending freely on Vegas’s myriad offerings – per-trip spending on non-gambling activities jumped over 38% from 2019 levels. Notably, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority reports that combined spending on food, drinks, shopping and sightseeing now far exceeds the typical gambling budget for many visitors.

Even among those who do gamble, time spent at the slots or tables is down about 10% compared to a few years ago. In short, the prototypical Vegas traveler is no longer the stereotyped high-roller or bus-load of pensioners hoping to strike it rich at the casino; it’s just as likely a 30-something couple or a group of friends looking for a well-rounded good time – where gambling is just one slice of the pie.

Las Vegas is adapting to these demographic changes by tailoring its offerings. Hotels have introduced more tech-savvy, social media-friendly attractions (from interactive art installations to selfie-worthy cocktail bars) to court younger guests. Promotions now emphasize “experiences” – think music festivals like Electric Daisy Carnival, foodie events, or sports tournaments – rather than simply advertising the loosest slots in town.

Even in the casinos, there’s experimentation with new games and formats (skill-based gaming, video game-like gambling machines, etc.) to engage the digital generation. As one casino executive summed it up, “People aren’t coming to Las Vegas to gamble anymore.

They are gambling when they’re in Las Vegas.” The trip is about the overall experience first. This reality has forced the casino-resort industry to evolve or risk irrelevance with the next generation.

So far, Las Vegas appears to be successfully reinventing its appeal – visitor satisfaction remains high, with nearly 9 in 10 guests in 2024 saying they were “very satisfied” with their trip. The fact that 86% of visitors were repeat visitors suggests that the modern Las Vegas formula is encouraging people to come back for more , even if they aren’t primarily lured by gambling.

What Defines Modern Las Vegas?

All of this raises the central question: what defines Las Vegas today? The city’s branding and identity have undeniably shifted. It promotes itself as “The Entertainment Capital of the World” and leans into images of glittering nightclubs, celebrity chef cuisine, spectacular shows, and now big-league sports.

Gambling – while still readily available 24/7 – has taken a relative back seat in the marketing. The numbers confirm that Vegas is no longer a one-trick gambling pony.

As noted, the bulk of resort revenue comes from non-gaming sources , a far cry from decades past when casinos literally kept the lights on. A generation ago, a Las Vegas vacation meant a casino-centric experience; today it might mean dining at a five-star restaurant, catching an A-list performer’s concert, and maybe fitting in a little blackjack on the side.

Opinions differ on whether this transformation is for the better. Many observers applaud Las Vegas’s ability to reinvent itself and stay relevant. By diversifying beyond gambling, the city weathered challenges like the proliferation of casinos elsewhere, the 2008 recession, and the pandemic shutdowns.

It has managed to attract a broader audience – including those who might never have visited just to gamble – by offering something for nearly everyone. The strategy of turning Vegas into a playground of assorted pleasures has, in many ways, paid off.

As one historian quipped, “Gambling is still important to Las Vegas, but this is a dining and entertainment town now”. That reality is evident walking down the Strip on any evening: you’ll see people lined up for nightclubs, Instagramming the Bellagio fountains, or debating which tasting menu to try – the casino is just one backdrop in a larger scene.

Yet there are also voices of nostalgia and criticism. Traditionalists argue that Las Vegas may be losing its unique character as it pivots to mainstream entertainment. They reminisce about the “Old Vegas” era of cheap thrills and high-roller glamour, lamenting that the new Vegas can feel like an expensive theme park.

With sky-high hotel rates, ubiquitous fees, and tighter odds, some gambling enthusiasts feel alienated – they complain that the town built on value for gamblers has turned its back on them. Indeed, the focus on upscale amenities means the average visitor now needs a much larger budget to fully partake in Vegas’s offerings.

There’s an ongoing debate about balance: can Las Vegas cater to new tastes without entirely abandoning its gambling soul? Or is the change simply the price of progress?

The introduction of family-oriented attractions in the 1990s, the later resurgence of nightlife and adult freedom marketing (“What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas”), and now the sports-and-entertainment wave all show Las Vegas continually redefining itself.

Each reinvention brings questions about what should Vegas be. For example, the recent push into sports has some skeptics noting that despite the fanfare, sports events remain a relatively small slice of the tourism pie.

They caution that pouring public resources into stadiums might not yield the same return as investing in more conventions or traditional casino attractions. Others counter that sports and other diversifications are exactly what will keep the city alive long-term as gambling becomes commodified everywhere.

Las Vegas has always been a chameleon, and in 2025 that trait is more evident than ever. The city once known purely for casinos has evolved into an all-encompassing resort metropolis.

Gambling is still in the mix – the slot machines haven’t gone silent – but it’s now part of a broader chorus that includes Michelin-star meals, pop superstar residencies, NFL touchdowns, luxury shopping sprees, and beyond.

Whether this dilutes the city’s original charm or enhances it is a matter of perspective. What’s clear is that Las Vegas is no longer just about gambling. It’s about entertainment writ large – a place where you can test your luck at the casino, yes, but also savor experiences you’d be hard-pressed to find all in one city elsewhere.

In the end, the modern Las Vegas may be best defined not by any single activity, but by its overarching promise: an escape into excess and excitement, however you choose to indulge in it.