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00:01So I have a bit of a surprise for you.
00:03It's not that green limo, is it?
00:05That sexy green hummus up there.
00:07It's all for you.
00:17Woo!
00:19Las Vegas, a neon playground in the middle of a desert
00:23in the US state of Nevada.
00:25Known as Sin City, this has long been a place for gamblers chasing their luck.
00:315.7 million and some change.
00:35And tourists from around the world seeking shameless adult-only fun.
00:42But times changed. Visitors lost interest in gambling.
00:47Vegas needed a new look.
00:49Pool parties, DJs, concert venues and huge sports events
00:56now make up New Vegas.
00:59Almost three quarters of the many billions of dollars pouring into the city
01:04are now spent on entertainment and hospitality.
01:08I'm Tia Dondi and I've come to investigate how this fresh new image
01:12is changing Las Vegas for those heading here to party.
01:15Welcome to the world's largest sports book.
01:18I have never seen anything like this.
01:21And to find out how the Vegas update has affected people who live and work here.
01:27She wasn't breathing.
01:28Are we trying to wake her up?
01:29Do we know what drug she's on?
01:30Oh my gosh.
01:31I remember just coming out of a complete blackness.
01:34They came and ran through my room and took what they wanted.
01:38In Sin City, the stakes are high.
01:40Who's holding all the cards?
01:43And at what cost?
01:44What is this city doing in the middle of this desert?
01:47It's exclusively built on losers' money.
01:50It's like the Hunger Games, basically.
01:52That's how we live here in Vegas.
01:54It's the casino owners and the celebrities.
01:57They get to live their lives peacefully while we're out here trying to survive.
02:00I'm with fellow Brit, Joel, in a limo on the Las Vegas Strip.
02:15I love this job.
02:17You've got loads of accessories.
02:18You've got...
02:19Yeah, the money gun over there.
02:20The money gun.
02:21Yeah.
02:22Can I use it?
02:23Yeah, of course.
02:24Shoot.
02:25There we go.
02:26It's really fun, I'm not going to lie.
02:28You've got all the alcohol.
02:29Sometimes girls on here as well.
02:31Whatever you need.
02:32Really?
02:33Yeah, of course.
02:34There's no place like Vegas.
02:35I was working in central London.
02:37I had a friend who offered me a role to sell party bus tickets in the Vegas Strip.
02:42I decided to quit my job, book a one-way ticket, and yeah, the rest is history.
02:47When was that?
02:48That was ten years ago now.
02:50As a VIP party promoter, Joel is the perfect person to tell me how Vegas and its visitors
02:57are changing.
02:58We had some big clients in last year.
03:01One of my favourite ones were they were adult entertainment stars.
03:05We had topless bartenders, we had a DJ in there, we had a naked sushi table.
03:11The next day they then hired a helicopter with a machine gun outside and we went and shot
03:15some targets in the desert up on a mountain.
03:17What?
03:18Anything's possible in Vegas.
03:19That's quite surprising.
03:20I keep hearing about this new Vegas.
03:23Can you tell me a little bit about it?
03:25There's definitely been a rise of new pool parties, new nightclubs rising and then a
03:30lot of sports franchises which have popped up and it's attracted a lot of the Brits because
03:34obviously the Brits love sport.
03:36People tend to come to me and lean on me for my experience.
03:38They go, what would you recommend?
03:40Honestly, the pool parties and the partying is number one at the minute for me.
03:43Really?
03:44That's what everyone come here for.
03:47In the past, gambling was what attracted most visitors.
03:52But traditional gaming revenue has been falling.
03:57To appeal to a new generation, the casino resorts have gone all out on entertainment.
04:06Before they open to tourists, I'm visiting a day club on the Strip that hosts pool parties.
04:16Hi, nice to meet you.
04:17Hello.
04:18Nice to meet you too.
04:19I'm Tyr.
04:20Jamil.
04:21What a place to work.
04:22Oh man, it's a beautiful place.
04:24Every day is a party.
04:27Right now we're on our mezzanine and this is where our cabanas are staged.
04:31So are these sort of VIP booths?
04:33We get a lot of VIPs in here.
04:35Really?
04:36Anywhere from $3,000 to $5,000 just really depending on the day.
04:39Have you seen the party scene in Vegas change over time?
04:43Well, the beach clubs, they definitely have grown.
04:46My clientele ranges from athletes, actors, businessmen and women to your everyday party goers.
04:55So really the clientele here is people with money?
04:58Yeah, you'll see a lot of those guys.
05:06The average price of our day beds go anywhere from $500 to $2,000.
05:14It just really depends on what event is going on in town.
05:18And then if you really want to, you know, spend some money, we have our bungalows.
05:23You have your own waitress, your own TV, your own dipping pool.
05:28So you don't have to join the mass crowd that, you know, this pool brings.
05:34On a big holiday weekend, these bungalows can actually go upwards to $20,000.
05:39That's expensive, I would say. For me anyway.
05:43Yeah, you'd be surprised at how many of those we actually sell.
05:47Do you have a rough idea of how much money a pool party can generate?
05:51I would say upwards to a million dollar a day.
05:55There's a lot of people drinking, a lot of people dancing. It's completely packed and it's a place to have fun.
06:16Day clubs like this have helped Vegas generate $16 billion a year in revenue from entertainment and hospitality.
06:34Gambling still has its place though and is worth more than $5 billion a year.
06:54But that's had a facelift too.
07:01These modern slot machines are designed to appeal to a younger crowd.
07:05I want $159.
07:11Gone are the buckets of coins.
07:14Now you can pay through cashless mobile apps.
07:18Something research shows makes it easier to spend more money than intended.
07:22I lost. Now I only have 10 cents.
07:28All my money's gone.
07:30So it's easy to see how in a few seconds, with a few clicks, you can lose it all.
07:35At one time, the casino resorts were controlled by local businessmen and the mafia.
07:52Much of New Vegas, though, is owned and operated by two corporate giants.
07:57Caesars Entertainment and MGM Resorts.
08:00In Nevada, there is no income tax to fund services like roads or hospitals.
08:08Instead, the state is run largely on money from the casinos.
08:14A tax on the cash we spend partying and gambling is what props the city up.
08:21In 2024, these taxes added up to $1.2 billion.
08:25The Las Vegas police are funded by the local authorities, but they get most of their money from property taxes paid by, you've guessed it, the casino owners.
08:39Hi, Brian. It's Ty. I'm just outside the Plaza Hotel.
08:43I'd like to know how these huge taxes affect the power balance in the city.
08:47Hi. Hi. Pleasure to meet you. How are you doing?
08:51Brian Joseph is an investigative journalist who lives in Las Vegas and has written a book exposing a darker side to the city.
08:59How important are the casinos in Vegas?
09:02It's very well recognized in this town that the casinos are the most important thing here.
09:06The way that this state supports itself is primarily through casino revenues, and the most important casinos are the ones on the strip.
09:14So you could definitely argue that the entire economy of the state is dependent on those few miles of the strip and being continually a money generator.
09:23The rule of mob bosses has led to the rule of the casino bosses, and that is who really are the power players here.
09:28There are elected politicians. There are various administrators. They pale in comparison to the people who run the casinos.
09:37It's their money. It's their campaign donations. Without the support of casino leadership, you know, you're not going to move far in this town politically.
09:45As in, if you don't have the support of casinos, you're not going to be able to run for mayor or...?
09:51You're not going to win. You can run. I mean, this is the United States. You can always run, but you're not going to win.
09:55That's actually crazy to me that casinos can have such a stronghold over a place.
10:00Do you think that this new Vegas is sort of cleaning up its act?
10:04Vegas has a reputation to maintain as a place that tourists want to come.
10:08And so as a result, there's an incentive to sweep some rather unappealing things under the rug.
10:14And that all reflects the fact that Vegas is trying to maintain its image.
10:25And that image is threatened by criminal activity.
10:29I've seen a notice sent to the casinos in June 2025 from the Gaming Control Board and the Las Vegas Metro Police.
10:36It outlines their potential concerns over drug dealing, violence, sexual assault, theft and other crimes happening at pool parties and nightclubs.
10:49They acknowledge proactive steps taken to prevent incidents, but threaten disciplinary action for venues with persistent problems.
10:57They say they want to protect Nevada's reputation as a safe and enjoyable tourist destination.
11:08Hi, Josh. Thank you so much for meeting me today.
11:12Josh claims he was a victim of a crime at a hotel on the Strip.
11:18We thought, hey, let's go to a pool party, let's see some live music, you know, have some fun.
11:23We're just finishing our first drink.
11:27Music's playing, starting to get a little busier and I start to feel a little woozy.
11:36And then that's when things went south.
11:39And I remember waking up in my room about seven to eight hours later in a panic mode, just coming out of a complete blackness, not knowing where my stuff is.
11:50What happened to your girlfriend?
11:51She finally calls like, hey, I woke up in the hospital bed.
11:56I'm pretty sure we were drugged at the pool party.
11:58Thankfully, one of the lifeguards, he noticed that we had gotten separated and she was being super intoxicated, like falling over.
12:05And the lifeguard just pulled her out.
12:08She was with two other men at the time.
12:10That's really, really scary.
12:12They ambulanced her to the local hospital.
12:14So I couldn't imagine, you know, how scared she was waking up in a cot in the hallway.
12:21Josh's father, Ralph, was also in Vegas with him.
12:26They asked the hotel if there was any CCTV of Josh returning that evening.
12:32The cameras captured him being walked to the hotel by two women he didn't recognise.
12:39I was like slumped over in between both of them.
12:43They're carrying him in with him in the middle and walking around, you know, with wiggly legs and then showed him go into the room and then came out like four and a half minutes later.
12:53So you were robbed by these two women?
12:56Yes. I had some clothes missing, some cash.
12:59They came and, you know, ran through my room and took what they wanted.
13:03And you could see their faces in the CCTV?
13:05Yes, yes.
13:07That sort of thing could be used and brought to the police.
13:09They said they weren't able to release it to us.
13:12They just let us see it.
13:14So we ended up not going and filling out an actual police report.
13:18Really? Why?
13:19The police, they just mark it up as a typical day in Vegas that they don't take it that serious.
13:26They were just like, you're in Vegas, you know, what do you expect?
13:28You know, there's really nothing you can do.
13:31And did you ever get in touch with the hotel that was holding the pool party?
13:35Yeah, they declined to comment.
13:38The family were frustrated and felt that the incident was being swept under the carpet.
13:43So they posted about it online.
13:44After this experience, I did get a lot of people sharing their same similar story.
13:53Oh, wow.
13:54Oh, yeah, they're novels.
13:56A similar thing happened to my friend.
13:58We know who drugged us.
14:00There was a group of several guys involved.
14:02It was a very organized operation.
14:04Another gentleman was out here for his 21st birthday and they got his bank account for $3,000.
14:11You know, one lady woke up at the hospital and all of her gold and jewelry were gone.
14:16It's so scary.
14:17It was.
14:18It's really scary.
14:21We asked the Las Vegas Metro Police if they had any data on the number of drinks spiking reports they receive.
14:28But they declined to comment.
14:34We also put the issues raised in this documentary to the Nevada Resort Association.
14:40But no one responded to our letter.
14:42As a city known for its party scene, Las Vegas is no stranger to illegal drugs like cocaine and MDMA.
15:03And while these can lead to overdoses and even death, there's a much more dangerous drug in the mix, too.
15:16I'm heading out with Guardian Elite, a private ambulance team supporting the city's emergency services,
15:22who are on call for nearly 3 million residents and over 40 million visitors a year.
15:27Hi, Sam. Nice to meet you. I'm here.
15:29Hey, Sam.
15:31We've got our medical gear. We've got a monitor.
15:33They're on the front line of a fentanyl epidemic.
15:36A synthetic opioid 50 times more potent and deadly than heroin.
15:41And hitting American cities like Las Vegas hard.
15:45We're going to go into downtown Las Vegas.
15:47We're going to go out and wait for calls for service.
15:523-6-1. I'll be available for the day.
15:53A call happens here in Vegas probably every 30 seconds.
16:03Every 30 seconds?
16:04Yeah. As a city, we respond to several hundred thousand calls for service every year.
16:08So do you guys work alongside the 911 ambulance services?
16:12You know, sometimes the 911 system gets so overloaded that they have to call us in for backup.
16:19Sam's also carrying medicine called Narcan, which reverses the effect of an opioid overdose.
16:25Do you see a lot of drug overdoses here?
16:33We do. I mean, Vegas is a very party town, so we'll see a lot of alcohol issues, a lot of drug issues.
16:39You know, one of the problems with drugs that we find here is that, you know, you may think you're doing something, whether it be ecstasy or cocaine, but a lot of times these drugs are cut with something else.
16:53I recently had a case where we were called to evaluate a female at a festival, became unresponsive.
16:58Her friend told us she was doing cocaine, but typically cocaine won't do that to you.
17:02We also woke her up with some Narcan, and so we highly suspected that the cocaine was laced with fentanyl.
17:07That's terrifying.
17:11As the sun starts to set, we'll start seeing the downtown area start coming alive.
17:16Right now is the busy time where we tend to see more call volume.
17:25We just got alerted that there's a female who is possibly overdosing in her car.
17:33I hope she's okay.
17:37Just up here?
17:38Yeah.
17:39I have a feeling it's that car right there.
17:40We're the first at the scene.
17:42Oh my gosh.
17:43Hey, what's going on?
17:44She wasn't breathing.
17:45Are we trying to wake her up?
17:46Her lips are falling blue.
17:48She's on 35.
17:49I know what it look like.
17:51Okay, she's got a pulse.
17:53Do we know what drug she's on?
17:54Yeah, she's got a pulse, not breathing.
17:55She's cyanotic, apneic.
17:56She's got pinpoint pupils.
17:57Wake up.
18:01It's absolutely awful.
18:02This is the side of Vegas that you don't really realize exists until you see it yourself.
18:03Heart rate of 124.
18:04Open point, peoples.
18:05Wake up.
18:15It's absolutely awful.
18:23This is definitely the side of Vegas that you don't really
18:25realize exists until you see it yourself.
18:30Heart rate of 124.
18:34All right, I marked your Narcan, both of them, on your monitor
18:37as a generic event.
18:44Copy.
18:46Well done.
18:47Well, thank you.
18:48What happened?
18:50Some kind of narcotic.
18:53I'm not 100% sure.
18:54I mean, we can speculate that maybe she overdosed on something.
18:58You know, the signs point to it.
18:59The fact that we gave her Narcan.
19:01She started to wake up with the Narcan.
19:03The fact that she had pinpoint pupils.
19:04She had, you know, cyanotic lips.
19:06Possibly heroin.
19:07Possibly fentanyl.
19:08But we didn't find any drugs in the car.
19:10She didn't have the needle in her arm.
19:12So we really don't know.
19:13Is she breathing now?
19:14Is she intense?
19:15So she is.
19:16Yeah.
19:17It was quite shocking to me.
19:18When I came to Vegas, I had a perception that it was going to be, you know, this glamorous,
19:23fun, glitzy place.
19:25And I'm slowly starting to learn that, you know, there's a bit of an underbelly.
19:31There's definitely a dark underside of Vegas that most people, you know, don't see.
19:44Just two milligrams of fentanyl can be lethal.
19:48If, as Sam says, drugs like cocaine are frequently being cut with it, that's something I need to look into.
19:56Hello.
19:57Hi.
19:58Melanie Rouse is the Clark County Coroner.
20:00She investigates drug deaths in Vegas and works on an opiate task force assessing the impact of drug abuse in and around the city.
20:11When we first started seeing fentanyl in the market, we started seeing it adulterated drugs.
20:16So people would purchase one drug and end up with fentanyl in it, which ended up being fatal.
20:22A lot of tourists, do they come here, they buy drugs, and it ends up that there's fentanyl in their drugs?
20:28Is that something that you've seen before?
20:29We have seen that.
20:31Typically, what you will find is that people that are purchasing drugs here may not know exactly what they are getting.
20:38We see what is commonly called M30s.
20:40So those are pills designed to look exactly like morphine tablets look.
20:44But really, they're fake pressed and they contain fentanyl.
20:47You're also going to see those in Xanitabs.
20:50They look just like a Xanax bar, but they often contain fentanyl.
20:53And then you also have methamphetamine that is often adulterated with fentanyl.
20:58What we've now seen is a shift where fentanyl has become people's drug of choice.
21:02So people are actually going out and seeking to use fentanyl, knowing that it's a dangerous substance and knowing that it can cause death.
21:09Does that tend to be tourists or people who live in Vegas?
21:12I would say it's a combination of both populations.
21:14So it is people that reside here as well as people that come here and seek to obtain drugs.
21:19We had over 600 opiate-related fatalities that occurred from October of 23 to August of 24.
21:27Compared to the rest of the states in the US, how does Vegas rank in terms of drug-related deaths?
21:33What we're experiencing across the country seems to be a decline in drug-related fatalities.
21:39Unfortunately, that's not a trend that we're seeing here in southern Nevada.
21:43Ours is still increasing.
21:45I want to find out just how widespread the use of drugs are on the party scene.
22:00Willem is a former club promoter.
22:04Hi, nice to see you. Nice to meet you.
22:06Who knows more than most about the darker side to partying in the city.
22:10Is the demand quite high in Vegas, would you say, for drugs?
22:16Absolutely. Yeah.
22:18Vegas is an interesting place because of our tourism.
22:22For some years, I was a strip club promoter.
22:25Okay.
22:26So I was sending groups to the strip club.
22:28And, you know, if you had a group of ten guys that wanted to go to the strip club,
22:32they're going to party, you know what I mean?
22:34So the tourists are willing to pay a lot of money for the drugs,
22:38depending on what part of the world they come from.
22:40Was there, like, a particular kind of group that stood out?
22:42Australian bachelor parties, yeah.
22:45The Australians, really?
22:46Yes, yeah.
22:47That surprises me.
22:48Yeah.
22:49What about the Brits?
22:50The Brits?
22:51Yeah, definitely.
22:52Yeah.
22:53They like cocaine.
22:56Yeah.
22:57There's a lot of drugs here.
22:59Yeah.
23:02Willem's own struggle with drugs began as it has for millions of Americans.
23:07When he was prescribed opiate painkillers by his doctor.
23:13This city has been a rollercoaster for me personally.
23:17I became addicted to heroin.
23:19And when you develop a habit that's costing you $1,000 a day,
23:24usually selling drugs is the best option, unfortunately.
23:29So I used to sell drugs here in Vegas.
23:32Did you?
23:33Mm-hmm.
23:34What sort of drugs were you selling, if you don't mind me asking?
23:36Heroin, meth, cocaine, ecstasy, Xanax.
23:42I would sell to friends, other people that were in my circle that were using.
23:48And then, yeah, tourists.
23:52I've been sober for two years now.
23:55How long were you using for, would you say?
23:58For over 20 years.
24:01I got to Vegas when I was a sophomore in high school.
24:04And I was addicted by the time I was a senior.
24:07So, yeah.
24:08Would you say that it's quite easy to get addicted to drugs in Vegas?
24:12Have you seen that happen to a lot of people?
24:14It's easy to get addicted to drugs anywhere.
24:16But with the amount of tourism that we have
24:18and the amount of money that flows through the city,
24:20there is a higher demand for drugs on this trip.
24:23So, as a teenager or a young person, drugs are an issue here.
24:30Willem says he never sold fentanyl,
24:32but its arrival in Vegas turned his life upside down.
24:38There's a fentanyl issue across America.
24:42But Vegas definitely got hit hard.
24:45It was showing up in cocaine and, you know, other drugs.
24:51People that were not intending to use fentanyl,
24:53they were OD'ing and dying.
24:56I transitioned from heroin to fentanyl in 2019, 2020.
25:02I was functional on heroin for 20 years,
25:05but when I started using fentanyl,
25:07my life completely fell apart.
25:09Within about a year of starting to use fentanyl,
25:12I found myself homeless.
25:13Wow.
25:14I ended up on Las Vegas Boulevard, homeless,
25:17for almost two years, year and a half, two years.
25:27There's a lot of low points over a 25-year addiction.
25:33This was definitely one of my low points.
25:36America's opioid crisis kills tens of thousands of people a year.
25:40Since 2021, it's been the leading cause of death for Americans aged between 18 and 45.
25:49In Vegas, fentanyl's impact is felt across the city,
25:53even around the glitz and glamour of the Strip.
25:55We are just off Las Vegas Boulevard at the Diamond Inn Motel.
26:05We are literally just steps away from the tourist corridor.
26:08You know, Mandalay Bay is right across the street.
26:10This was a convenient place to buy and use drugs.
26:14You know, that was right next to where, you know, you could easily go and make money.
26:22This is where I spent the majority of the last couple of years of my addiction.
26:27We got arrested here multiple times, watched people overdose, saved some people from overdosing here.
26:36With how dangerous fentanyl is, and for those types of drugs to be in such close proximity to the tourists,
26:43that's a dangerous combination.
26:45There's a misconception about drug addicts.
26:50The people that are out here on the streets are not terrible people.
26:54Addiction is a monster.
26:57Society has kind of brushed them aside.
26:59With drug deaths in Nevada rising, fentanyl clearly poses a massive problem for the city.
27:17I'd like to know what life's like for young people growing up here.
27:22Champion is willing to do what no one else is willing to do.
27:25That means keeping my mind, body and spirit clean.
27:29As well as physical training, Steve Bowe's boxing gym offers support to young residents of Vegas.
27:36Drugs and alcohol good for you guys?
27:38No, coach!
27:39We've lost two kids in the last few months, right, to fentanyl overdose and they have died.
27:45Anybody recognize this? What's this, guys?
27:48It's a vape. What are drug dealers doing with vapes?
27:51You want to guess? Make it all color and shine.
27:53You don't know what's in here.
27:55I'll tell you. It's fentanyl.
27:57This killed one of our kids.
27:59Had everything going for him.
28:01Starts like this and ends like the poor homeless people that you see outside everywhere.
28:06The choices that you're going to make over the next couple years are going to be critical.
28:10You need help? Come talk to me. Talk to your parents. We're here.
28:14I'm a counselor, man.
28:16You're upset and depressed. You know what you do?
28:18You come hit the bags as hard as you can.
28:19Are you ready?
28:21Yes, coach!
28:22Let's go! Hit those bags right now. Go!
28:25What do you know about how dangerous fentanyl is?
28:39Fentanyl is probably the most dangerous drug there is.
28:42Have you seen a lot of people taking it?
28:43Yeah, I hope people die. You walk down the street, you'll see people just sitting just stiff, can't move because they're off the fentanyl.
28:52Nothing good comes in. It tore up my family. Fentanyl tore up my family. My uncle passed away from that. That's not me, you know? I want to stay away from that and I want to make something of myself.
29:05I've really helped a lot of kids. Introduce them to boxing, talk about good grades, staying away from drugs and alcohol, making good choices so they have a good life.
29:21So it's almost like a boxing rehabilitation program.
29:24Yes, that's exactly what it is. I would say 90% of my job is counselling and mentoring. I'm not trying to find a champion boxer. I'm trying to find champion people.
29:36Make sure you get those hands up. I'm coming. Beautiful.
29:40Poverty is a risk factor for overdoses from opioids like fentanyl. Despite the billions of dollars pouring in on the strip, one in eight Vegas residents live below the poverty line, 20% higher than the national average.
29:58As a 15-year-old, it was easy for me to go get a firearm, a pistol. As a 15-year-old, then it was for me to go get a job.
30:03Is that something that you did?
30:04Yes. I went down the wrong path. I went into the streets, did drugs, alcohol, the party life, and I just gave up in life completely.
30:12I sobered up eight years ago from everything and I chose this gym because Coach Bo, he does stuff for troubled kids that I didn't have.
30:20I watched my best friend overdose in front of me when I was 15. He was 14 off of Xanax pills. We fell asleep and we woke up and he was blue, blue to the face.
30:29I'm so sorry. That must have been really hard.
30:32A lot of the kids you've seen that were here went through similar things as me. That's how it is here in Vegas. Either we're losing a friend from gang violence to prison to overdosing.
30:41I think people have a perception of Vegas, which is that it's very glamorous. There's a lot of glitz. There's a lot of money pumped into it.
30:48They like to focus everything into the entertainment so they could bring money in. They don't care. They leave us to the side. It's like the Hunger Games, basically. That's how we live here in Vegas.
30:56It's the casino owners and the celebrities. They get to live their lives peacefully while we're out here trying to survive. And a lot of kids are suffering because of it.
31:05They're ready to put your hands in. Let's go. One, two, three.
31:12Low Boxing!
31:13Excellent class today, guys. You gave me chills, man. Appreciate your hard work. Incredible young people.
31:19The casino industry paid billions in taxes, supports charities and runs foundations set up to benefit local communities.
31:36But with drug deaths rising, it's clear the city still has big challenges to overcome.
31:45Round-the-clock parties and global music stars aren't the only big plays Las Vegas has made to attract new visitors.
32:09Looking forward to what's going to be a great week of rugby over there. Look out, Vegas.
32:18Sport is at the heart of the city's new image.
32:21Let's do it, Vegas!
32:24From the Super Bowl.
32:25As a kid, I dreamed about these moments that I'm actually out here.
32:28To Formula One.
32:31The high demand for tickets has proven that this is an event no one will forget.
32:36UFC.
32:37The return of the notorious Conor McGregor in Las Vegas, Nevada.
32:41Boxing.
32:42This is the biggest fight in a decade.
32:45And even ice hockey.
32:46You wouldn't call Vegas a traditional hockey market, but the building's filled with fans every night.
32:51In less than 10 years, Vegas has gone from having no professional sports teams.
32:56Go Knights, go!
32:58To becoming a host for some of the world's biggest sporting events.
33:04Which generate almost $2 billion a year for the city.
33:08And where there is sport, there will be a market for sports betting too.
33:21Which the casinos have embraced in full Vegas style.
33:27Circa is one of the newest in town.
33:29They say they have the world's largest sports book or bookies.
33:33Welcome to Circa.
33:34There's a lot to look at, right?
33:38This is a three storey, thousand capacity venue.
33:44Facing a huge 145 foot wide screen.
33:47That broadcasts multiple live sports from across the world.
33:53I have never seen anything like this.
33:56It's massive.
33:58Mike Palm is president of operations here.
34:02We've been operating six years here.
34:04We've seen our sports business really expand exponentially.
34:07Over that time.
34:09As it's become more mainstream.
34:10It's now a big regulated industry.
34:13That you have most of the casinos involved in.
34:16Would you say that sports betting has become more popular than classic gambling?
34:20I think it's different for different companies.
34:22I think table games is sort of phasing out because it's very labor intensive.
34:26And as we continue to increase the minimum wage and the cost of healthcare, the cost to employ a worker raises so much that it really cuts into the margin of table games.
34:37So sports, which can be done in a big setting like this, but also on our phones, right?
34:42We have these big, beautiful books, but still over 80% of the bets come from mobile.
34:46Obviously the infrastructure cost is less once you get by the tech of having to employ so many people.
34:51So I think sports is rising as table games is declining.
34:55A recent poll the American Gaming Association showed close to 60 million Americans said they placed a wager on a sporting event in the last year.
35:03That number, even five years ago, would have been 30 million.
35:07So obviously that's a big increasing market.
35:09We see the influence of folks that came from playing daily fantasy sports, like fantasy football, now converting into sports bettors.
35:17And by mixing sports with the city's pool party culture, Circa have created what has to be the most glamorous bookies in the world.
35:25Stadium swim is a day club that's also a bookies with a 40 foot outdoor screen.
35:38It's the DJ and people are day drinking and having fun and people are in a pool and they're watching all the beautiful bodies.
35:44At the same time, the kiosks are down there to make your bets or if you have a phone account.
35:49NFL Sundays, 3,000 people up there.
35:523,000 up there?
35:54And they pay 10,000 for a cabana.
35:56Wow.
35:57They pay 5,000 for a seat in the sports book on an NFL Sunday.
36:00People say that's an outrageous price.
36:02I would say yes, but if they pay it, is it?
36:04I mean, that's what the demand is.
36:08The casino's own betting app lets visitors place bets on their phones from the poolside.
36:17Gambling on digital devices has become the norm.
36:2070% of all bets on sports in the world were made from a mobile device in 2023.
36:30Slicker tech and sports are just two ways Vegas is revamping gambling in the city.
36:35But as one in 12 Americans who bet, either have or could develop a gambling problem, there's a flip side to the fun.
36:47They say in the 12 step group that I go to, there's only three options for a gambler who doesn't stop.
36:51It's prison, insanity or death.
36:53Celebrities are promoting their favourite sports book or casino everywhere you look.
36:57Rob Minick is an ex-gambling addict turned campaigner.
37:01Sports betting was his gateway to a life-changing addiction.
37:05Now, he warns others of the dangers.
37:09And I hope that you don't go down the same path that I did.
37:13When I started, I was just gambling with my friends on just fantasy football.
37:17And early on, it kind of went well.
37:19Like, there were some wins along the way, but I wanted things faster than my friends did.
37:23And I wanted more action.
37:24And within a month, I was already doing regular sports betting.
37:27And in America, that's three years underage.
37:29And I was lying about my address, my age, trying to just get as many bets in as I could.
37:34And I wouldn't stop until the middle of the night.
37:36It was a compulsion after a month.
37:39As you develop a problem, what happens is you start to isolate.
37:42And you start to lie about it to friends and family.
37:44I mean, the number of times I would run off to the bathroom to check on bets or place bets is incredible.
37:48And there was a certain shame to that.
37:50But I couldn't stop because, to me, as I developed the addiction,
37:54it wasn't just about feeling adrenaline anymore.
37:57It was just about feeling okay.
37:58My brain had literally rewired itself to the point that I only cared about getting that next bet in.
38:06The Nevada Resorts Association say casinos have all signed up to the Responsible Gaming Initiative
38:12and take a proactive approach to identifying and helping problem gamblers.
38:24But what about when someone's gambling becomes a problem for the casino?
38:29We got another half a million here.
38:31We're looking at roughly nine and a half million.
38:35This is Mickey Mace, a notorious Vegas gambler who claims to have won over $32 million.
38:42Valentine's Day, 5.7 million and some change.
38:47He helps megastars like Drake and Lil Baby win big.
38:5125 hands.
38:52Only lose one. Thanks for my man.
38:55His exploits attracted over a quarter of a million followers on social media
39:00and, at first, won the goodwill of the casinos.
39:04But he claims when he won too much, he fell out of favour with the casinos,
39:08who no longer welcome him on the strip.
39:11I've come out to the desert to meet him.
39:29Hello.
39:30How you doing?
39:31Good, thanks. How are you?
39:32Good.
39:33I'm Tyr. Nice to meet you.
39:35Mickey, what a pleasure.
39:37What did you come here for originally?
39:39I was just living the young, rich bachelor life looking for things to do.
39:44Like, I love to gamble, I love debauchery, I love, like, chaos.
39:48And so you came to Vegas, you started gambling.
39:50Were you winning big?
39:51At the end of my career, I was winning a net profit of a million dollars a week.
39:55A million dollars a week?
39:56Right.
39:58And how do the high rollers in Vegas live?
40:00My lifestyle as a high roller in Vegas was quite lavish.
40:04They would give me private jets, they would give me helicopter rides anywhere I wanted,
40:08they gave me a Maybach with a chauffeur, they gave me a Rolls Royce with a chauffeur.
40:11I lived for free in these private villas.
40:13Who's they?
40:14The casinos.
40:15They gave all of that to you?
40:16Correct.
40:17They'll do anything really to accommodate you staying in that building,
40:21specifically at the table, as long as possible.
40:23The casinos do a lot of things, some are obvious and some aren't.
40:27There's no clocks.
40:28They are constantly keeping the temperature cold to keep people awake.
40:31They give you free alcohol to keep everybody making bad moral decisions.
40:35If you go into any of the casinos today, you'll see that every hallway is just slightly curved.
40:41And the reason for that is they want to subconsciously direct you to certain places to spend money or lose money.
40:46So you think that casinos are designed to help people to lose?
40:50100%.
40:51But I saw through it and I kept winning.
40:54There was a tipping point and each casino had their own threshold for financial pain.
40:58And as each one ticked away, I'd get banned one at a time from each casino.
41:02So you sort of went from being the casino's best client to not being allowed back in at all?
41:09I was actually never a good client. I was their most hopeful client.
41:13The amounts that I was winning, they assumed over long term I'd give all that money back and then some.
41:19But that never happened. And now I'm banned at almost every casino in the world.
41:23Is that legal? Is that a thing?
41:25Yeah, it's private business and they could refuse service for any reason or no reason.
41:29These casinos were built exclusively on losers.
41:31This whole city is built in the middle of the desert.
41:34As far as you can see, there's nothingness.
41:37What is the city doing in the middle of this desert?
41:41It's exclusively built on losers' money.
41:50So far in Vegas, I've seen how the casino industry have successfully transformed the city.
41:56And why this new image would be so appealing to a younger generation of tourists.
42:03But I've discovered a darker side too.
42:06How crime and the lethal drug fentanyl have infiltrated the party scene.
42:10And claims that protecting its image might be keeping the real Las Vegas under wraps.
42:16Next time, I'm going to dig a bit deeper.
42:20They don't want the violence to be known of what goes on here.
42:24This is our area bro, I told you.
42:26I discover a side of Vegas most tourists won't see.
42:30We serve 800 trays of food a day.
42:34There's someone in there.
42:36They're checking it now.
42:38I go underground to meet people living beneath the city.
42:42How do you find it living down here?
42:44Out of sight, out of mind.
42:46Out of sight, out of mind.
42:48And I find out how the city's rebrand...
42:51Like, it's not safe for us right now.
42:53...has impacted its famous sex industry.
42:56What they're doing is really pushing sex workers further underground.
43:00And that's a perfect storm.
43:02There's kind of a saying we have.
43:04People come to Vegas to kill sex workers.
43:08You're not always doing it.
43:09You're right.
43:10But, Asuna says...
43:11You're right.
43:13This is a perfect storm.
43:14Boy, I
43:22you're religious you're gone.
43:26Call, you're as 거지yn- ça,
43:28You didn't even spell your name...
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