当然，游客可以参与赌博活动，83％的参观者表示他们会去赌博。但拉斯维加斯所提供的赌博彩乐只是一个“附加项目”，racinos和老虎机全美国到处倒是，人们可以随处选择，而无需赶到拉斯维加斯赌场发挥这些赌博游戏。除了如戏剧，喜剧和高尔夫球场等景点，拉斯维加斯在这些娱乐设施上也相当完备。没有其他地方像拉斯维加那样提供如此全面的娱乐项目。它是美国最神奇的城市，在沙漠中，在霓虹幻影中闪闪发光。

　　拉斯维加斯拉斯维加斯金沙总裁艾德森，多年来一直是世界第三富裕的人，坚持认为，赌博业务与游戏业务没有什么区别。但赌博业务和博彩业务有一个重要区别，博彩与赌博的区别就像“品鸡尾酒和外出酗酒”。

　　金沙总裁艾德森声称，他经营的是综合度假胜地的业务。他的加沙地带的酒店，威尼斯宫，拥有数以千计的酒店客房，高档购物中心，餐厅，水疗中心，宴会厅，会议中心，当然还包括一个赌场。赌场是要推动收入增长重要业务，而会议中心对于吸引商务旅客也是必不可少的。这些商务旅客也许再会决定下次携同家人来此度假。但其收入的70％左右并非来自博彩业。

　　仅把赌场当做盈利的经营模式同样适用于整个拉斯维加斯城市。2009年，游客住宿的平均费用一晚为75美元左右，游客平均逗留的时间为3.6晚。他们平均掏出250美元购买食品，而购物消费平均在100美元以上，此外，还有交通运输53美元和45美元旅游观光费。赌博的平均预算为482美元，与2005年相比，呈现大幅下降趋势，2005年赌徒平均下注627美元。而在所有的游客中，有17％的游客是参与不赌博彩乐的。但是，不赌博的游客花在其他活动的费用也是相当可观的。

　　拉斯维加斯一开始就被视作一个僻静的犯罪的天堂，而且隐藏在沙漠中。这是拉斯维加斯不得不面对的事实，由它所引起的罪恶已经成为了一个广泛的认知。

　　但作为赌博行业的老大，拉斯维加斯有很大优势，其赌博税税率以6.75％为上限。大西洋城，新泽西州的税率高达8％，而大多数其他地方的赌场可能要支付更高的税率。金沙在美国的拉斯维加斯以外的资产是在宾夕法尼亚州伯利恒，那里的博彩所得税高达55％。

　　内华达州比起20年前显得更加多元化，它未来的发展很可能达到拉斯维加斯那样的程度。拉斯维加斯的命运主要取决于美国整体的经济状况。如果人们的口袋里有余钱，有些人就会不可避免地光顾加沙地带。但也有可能不需要增加新的酒店客房，因为游客的增长很可能比过去要缓慢。

　　译文：

　　Certainly, holidaymakers can and do gamble—83% of visitors did—but Las Vegas offers a “gambling plus” factor that the racinos and slots parlours opening all over America cannot rival. Aside from attractions such as theatre, comedy and golf, Las Vegas is full of associations （mobsters, the Rat Pack, the World Series of Poker and so on） that no other destination can offer. It is the strangest and most fantastic city in America, glittering in the middle of the desert like a neon mirage.

　　Mr Adelson, the head of Las Vegas Sands and for some years the world’s third-richest person, insists that he is not in the gambling business, nor even in the gaming business （a distinction he and Michael Leven, Las Vegas Sands’s president, consider important; the difference between gaming and gambling, according to Mr Leven, “is the difference between having a cocktail and going out drinking”）。

　　As far as Mr Adelson is concerned, he is in the integrated-resort business. His twin hotels on the Strip, the Venetian and the Palazzo, combine thousands of hotel rooms, upmarket shopping （some of it lining a Venetian streetscape, complete with a painted blue sky, canals and gondola rides）， restaurants, spas, banquet halls, convention centres and, of course, a casino. The casino is necessary to drive revenue, just as the convention centres are essential to attract business travellers who may then decide to return for a holiday with their families. But around 70% of his revenue, says Mr Adelson, comes from non-gaming sources.

　　The model of using casinos as just one of many revenue-spinners also works for Las Vegas as a whole. In 2009 tourists on average spent around $75 a night on accommodation and stayed for 3.6 nights. They shelled out about $250 on food, just over $100 on shopping, $53 on transport and $45 on shows and sightseeing. The average gambling budget was $482 （down sharply from 2005, when the average punter bet $627）。 Some 17% of visitors do not gamble at all. But even those who do spend more on other activities combined.

　　Having begun as a secluded sinning haven, tucked away in the desert, Las Vegas has had to face the fact that its chief sin on offer has become much more widely available. But for casino owners it still has a big advantage: its gambling-tax rate is capped at 6.75%. New Jersey, home to Atlantic City, offers an 8% rate, but most other places are much greedier. Sands’s only American property outside Vegas is in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, where the state taxes gross gaming revenue at 55%.

　　The state of Nevada is more diversified than it was two decades ago, but it is likely to return to strength only as Las Vegas does, and Vegas’s fortunes depend on America’s economy. If people have money in their pockets, some will inevitably find its way to the Strip. But there may be no need for new hotel rooms for some time, and growth is likely to be flatter than in the past.