Las Vegas is a wonderful town. Positioned in the middle of the desert and often known simply as ‘Vegas’, the town boasts to be the ‘entertainment capital of the world’, and if you’ve ever visited, you can see why. The sprawling strip is home to many of the city’s most famous casinos and hotels, and vary from very small to absolutely huge – the MGM Grand boasts 5,124 rooms alone, and is one the biggest hotels in the world.
Vegas has been thriving for many years now, the city bringing in an estimated 40 million visitors every year, something which makes the town the economic life-blood of the state of Nevada, where it lies. Of course there are many ways to gamble online now, and a lot of the sites offer an exclusive casino bonus just to sign up, but Vegas is also home to many concerts, theatre shows and spectacles which will always bring in the punters.
Over the years many of the hotels and casinos have made their way into the movies. Below, we take a look at which of the hotels have featured in which movies. You may be surprised.
As mentioned before, the MGM Grand is the biggest hotel and casino on the strip in terms of hotel rooms, and the venue has hosted many high-profile boxing matches in its massive indoor arena. Such films to make the MGM Grand the focus of their story include the famous remake of Ocean’s Eleven, where Lennox Lewis is seen fighting prior to the big heist; It is featured at the end of Martin Scorsese’s famous Vegas movie Casino, the entrance being the symbol of the new Vegas, and even in the Chevy Chase comedy Vegas Vacation in 1997.
Down the strip a little is the famous Mirage, the hotel and casino that has a working volcano (obviously fake) outside which erupts every hour. The casino, positioned between Caesars Palace and Treasure Island, is seen in the films The Wolf Of Wall Street, where Leonardo DiCaprio’s character Jordan Belfort has his bachelor party hosted. There’s also the famous poker movie Rounders, which has the Mirage’s poker room featured, a place where Matt Damon’s character is seen gambling in a high stakes game.
Arguably the most famous hotel on the strip is Caesars Palace – world famous venue and entertainment complex which plays host to the likes of Rod Stewart, Sir Elton John and Celine Dion in its massive Colosseum indoor arena. The hotel and casino has been seen in many films over its 51 year history. It has made appearances in the recent Marvel Studios film Iron Man, The Hangover and its second sequel The Hangover Part III. Going back over the years it has been seen in Rocky III, Rain Man and even TV series like The Partridge Family, The Sopranos, Friends and even an episode of the legendary The Simpsons.
With Vegas growing every year, and the strip seemingly getting even longer, it will continue to attract large scale productions ensuring we’ll always see the bright lights of the big city on screen for a long time to come.
