As the perfect fuel to turn a dithering gawker into a diehard gambler,
alcohol
is very easy indeed to come by in Las Vegas. If you want a drink in a casino, there's no need to look for a bar; instead, a tray-toting waitress will come and find you. Beers and cocktails are delivered free of charge to anyone hovering near, let alone seated at, the tables and slot machines, and assuming you keep on tipping the waitress, the supply will keep on going around the clock.
All the casinos have at least one actual
bar
as well, located in the heart of the gaming area and invariably packed with cacophonous slot machines; even the ones at
Bellagio
have video poker screens inlaid into their solid marble counters. Customers who are actively gambling can usually get their drinks free. If you're staying at a major casino on the Strip or downtown, you'll have no difficulty finding a place to drink in your hotel. Neither area, however, holds any significant bars other than those attached to casinos. Elsewhere, neighborhood bars do exist where you can drink and eat away from the frenzy of the casinos - the most popular local pub chain,
PT's
, has around twenty locations - but very few tourists bother to seek them out.
Brewpubs
too have appeared both in, and away from, the casinos; if you're a beer drinker, you might prefer to seek them out, but don't expect anything special in terms of food, let alone that you're going to get away from blaring slot machines.
To buy or consume alcohol in Nevada, you must be aged 21 or over, and have photo ID to prove it.
In terms of enjoying a proper night out, however, ordinary run-of-the-mill bars are just a small part of the picture. In the last few years, Las Vegas has witnessed an explosion of nightlife opportunities. The old-fashioned
Las Vegas lounge
has returned in force, both knowingly retro-styled for twenty-something rockers and lovingly re-created for older visitors looking to recapture the quieter but still somehow deliciously decadent flavour of the Rat Pack era. The casinos are once more competing to hold exotic and characterful lounges; the
Venetian
, for example, currently holds three highly individual alternatives.
What's even more striking is that Las Vegas has finally come of age as an international
clubbing
capital. The opening of the stand-alone
Club Utopia
on the Strip in 1994 paved the way for a steady trickle of copycat ventures, but only since the start of the millennium has the scene really taken off. No longer are clubbers considered a breed apart from tourists; instead, the success of nightclubs at hipper casinos like the
Hard Rock
and
Mandalay Bay
has prompted all their major rivals to follow suit, often with spectacular results. As the word gets about, Las Vegas is becoming known as a specific clubbing destination, although it's still somewhat skewed towards older punters - Hugh Hefner is even said to be talking about bringing in the first new
Playboy
club for twenty years.
So many entrepreneurs have so much money to throw around in Las Vegas, aiming to please all of the people all of the time, that it's getting all but impossible to pinpoint the differences between bars, lounges, restaurants, and nightclubs. Our listings are divided on the basis that you go to a bar to drink, whereas you go to a club to dance. And a lounge ? well, you go to a lounge because you're in Las Vegas
