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Watch Sin City The Real Las Vegas () free Season 1 Episode 1 online in HD on Dailymotion (2026).
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00:00So, I have a bit of a surprise for you.
00:02It's not that green limo, is it?
00:05That sexy green hump, it's not there.
00:07It's all for you.
00:16Woo!
00:18Las Vegas, a neon playground in the middle of a desert
00:22in the US state of Nevada.
00:26Known as Sin City,
00:27this has long been a place for gamblers chasing their luck.
00:315.7 million and some change.
00:35And tourists from around the world
00:37seeking shameless adult-only fun.
00:42But times changed.
00:44Visitors lost interest in gambling.
00:47Vegas needed a new look.
00:50Pool parties, DJs, concert venues
00:54and huge sports events
00:56now make up New Vegas.
01:00Almost three-quarters of the many billions of dollars
01:03pouring into the city
01:04are now spent on entertainment and hospitality.
01:08I'm Tia Dondi and I've come to investigate
01:11how this fresh new image is changing Las Vegas
01:14for 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
01:24has 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
01:36and took what they wanted.
01:38In Sin City, the stakes are high.
01:41Who's holding all the cards?
01:43And at what cost?
01:44What is the city doing
01:46in 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
01:59while we're out here trying to survive.
02:11I'm with fellow Brit, Joel,
02:12in 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. Can I use it?
02:22Yeah, of course. Shoot.
02:23Can I just...
02:23There we go.
02:25That'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.
02:31Really?
02:32Yeah, of course.
02:33There's no place like Vegas.
02:34I was working in central London.
02:37I had a friend who offered me a roll
02:38to sell party bus tickets in the Vegas Strip.
02:42I decided to quit my job,
02:44book a one-way ticket,
02:45and, yeah, the rest is history.
02:47When was that?
02:48That was ten years ago now.
02:51As a VIP party promoter,
02:53Joel is the perfect person to tell me
02:55how Vegas and its visitors are changing.
02:59We had some big clients in last year.
03:01One of my favourite ones,
03:02they were adult entertainment stars.
03:04We had topless bartenders,
03:06we had a DJ in there,
03:08we had a naked sushi table.
03:10The next day,
03:11they then hired a helicopter
03:12with a machine gun outside
03:13and we went and shot some targets
03:15in the desert up on a mountain.
03:16What?
03:17Yeah.
03:17Anything'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?
03:24There's definitely been a rise
03:26of new pool parties,
03:27new nightclubs rising
03:29and then a lot of sports franchises
03:31which have popped up
03:32and it's attracted a lot of the Brits
03:33because, obviously,
03:34the Brits love sport.
03:35People tend to come to me
03:37and lean on me for my experience.
03:38They go, what would you recommend?
03:40And, honestly,
03:40the pool parties and the partying
03:41is number one at the minute for me.
03:43Really?
03:43That's what everyone come here for.
03:47In the past,
03:48gambling was what attracted most visitors.
03:52But traditional gaming revenue
03:54has been falling.
03:56To appeal to a new generation,
04:00the casino resorts have gone all out
04:02on entertainment.
04:10Before they open to tourists,
04:12I'm visiting a day club on the Strip
04:14that hosts pool parties.
04:16Hi, nice to meet you.
04:18Hello.
04:18Nice to meet you too.
04:19I'm Tyr.
04:20Jamil.
04:20What a place to work.
04:22Oh, man.
04:22It's a beautiful place.
04:24Every day is a party.
04:26Right now we're on our mezzanine
04:28and this is where our cabanas are staged.
04:31So are these sort of VIP booths?
04:33We get a lot of VIPs in here.
04:34Really?
04:35They range anywhere from 3 to 5K,
04:37just really depending on the day.
04:40Have you seen the party scene in Vegas change over time?
04:43Well, the beach clubs,
04:43they definitely have grown.
04:46My clientele ranges from, you know,
04:49athletes, actors, businessmen and women
04:52to your everyday party goers.
04:54So really the clientele here is people with money.
04:58Yeah, you'll see a lot of those guys.
05:05The 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.
05:17And then if you really want to, you know, spend some money,
05:21we have our bungalows.
05:22You 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,
05:32this pool brings.
05:33On a big holiday weekend,
05:35these bungalows can actually go upwards to $20,000.
05:40That's expensive, I would say.
05:41Yeah.
05:42For me anyway.
05:43Yeah, you'd be surprised at how many of those we actually sell.
05:46Do you have a rough idea of how much money a pool party can generate?
05:50I would say upwards to $1 million a day.
05:55It's the Feminine Energy.
06:09A lot of people drinking, a lot of people dancing, it's completely packed and it's a place to have fun.
06:26Dayclubs like this have helped Vegas generate $16 billion a year in revenue from entertainment and hospitality.
06:48Gambling still has its place though and is worth more than $5 billion a year.
06:55But that's had a facelift too.
07:01These modern slot machines are designed to appeal to a younger crowd.
07:08I 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.
07:25I lost, now I only have 10 cents, all 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.
07:46At one time, the casino resorts were controlled by local businessmen and the mafia.
07:51Much of New Vegas though, is owned and operated by two corporate giants, Caesars Entertainment and MGM Resorts.
08:02In 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.
08:20In 2024, these taxes added up to $1.2 billion.
08:27The Las Vegas police are funded by the local authorities, but they get most of their money
08:33from property taxes paid by, you've guessed it, the casino owners.
08:39Hi Brian, it's Ty. I'm just outside the Plaza Hotel.
08:42I'd like to know how these huge taxes affect the power balance in the city.
08:50Brian Joseph is an investigative journalist who lives in Las Vegas and has written a book,
08:56exposing a darker side to the city.
08:59How important are the casinos in Vegas?
09:01It's very well recognized in this town that the casinos are the most important thing here.
09:07The way that the state supports itself is primarily through casino revenues,
09:11and 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
09:17on those few miles of the strip and it being continually a money generator.
09:22The rule of mob bosses has led to the rule of the casino bosses,
09:26and that is who really are the power players here.
09:29There are elected politicians. There are various administrators.
09:33They pale in comparison to the people who run the casinos.
09:37It's their money. It's their campaign donations.
09:39It's without the support of casino leadership.
09:41You know, you're not going to move far in this town politically.
09:44As in, if you don't have the support of casinos, you're not going to be able to
09:49run for mayor?
09:50You're not going to win. You can run.
09:52I 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.
09:59Do you think that this new Vegas is sort of cleaning up its act?
10:03Vegas has a reputation to maintain as a place that tourists want to come.
10:07And 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.
10:24And 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
10:34and the Las Vegas Metro Police.
10:38It outlines their potential concerns over drug dealing, violence, sexual assault, theft,
10:45and other crimes happening at pool parties and nightclubs.
10:49They acknowledge proactive steps taken to prevent incidents, but threaten disciplinary action
10:55for venues with persistent problems.
10:59They say they want to protect Nevada's reputation as a safe and enjoyable tourist destination.
11:07Hi, Josh. Thank you so much for meeting me today.
11:11Josh claims he was a victim of a crime at a hotel on the Strip.
11:17We thought, hey, let's go to a pool party, let's see some live music, you know, have some fun.
11:24We're just finishing our first drink.
11:28Music'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.
11:40And I remember waking up in my room about seven to eight hours later in a panic mode,
11:45just coming out of a complete blackness, not knowing where my stuff is.
11:49What happened to your girlfriend?
11:51She finally calls, like, hey, I woke up in the hospital bed.
11:55I'm pretty sure we were drugged at the pool party.
11:58Thankfully, one of the lifeguards, he noticed that we had gotten separated,
12:01and she was being super intoxicated, like, falling over, and the lifeguard just pulled her out.
12:07She was with two other men at the time.
12:09That's really, really scary.
12:11They ambulanced her to the local hospital, so I couldn't imagine, you know,
12:16how scared she was waking up in a cot in the hallway.
12:21Josh's father, Ralph, was also in Vegas with him.
12:25They 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,
12:48and 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?
12:55Yes, I had some clothes missing, some cash.
12:58They came and, you know, ran through my room and took what they wanted.
13:02And you could see their faces in the CCTV?
13:04Yes, yes.
13:05That sort of thing could be used and brought to the police.
13:08They said they weren't able to release it to us.
13:11They just let us see it.
13:13So we ended up not going and feeling out an actual police report.
13:17Really? Why?
13:18They say that police, they just mark it up as a typical day in Vegas,
13:23that they don't take it that serious.
13:25They're just like, oh, you're in Vegas, you know, what do you expect?
13:28You know, there's really nothing you can do.
13:30And did you ever get in touch with the hotel that was holding the pool party?
13:34Yeah, they declined to comment.
13:37The family were frustrated and felt that the incident was being swept under the carpet.
13:42So they posted about it online.
13:45After 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.
13:59There was a group of several guys involved.
14:02It was a very organized operation.
14:05Another gentleman was out here for his 21st birthday,
14:08and 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.
14:15It's so scary.
14:17It was.
14:18It's really scary.
14:20We asked the Las Vegas Metro Police if they had any data on the number of drink spiking reports they
14:26receive.
14:29But they declined to comment.
14:34We also put the issues raised in this documentary to the Nevada Resort Association.
14:41But no one responded to our letter.
14:59As a city known for its party scene, Las Vegas is no stranger to illegal drugs like cocaine and MDMA.
15:08And while these can lead to overdoses and even death,
15:11there's a much more dangerous drug in the mix too.
15:15I'm heading out with Guardian Elite,
15:17a private ambulance team supporting the city's emergency services,
15:21who 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.
15:30We've got our medical gear. We've got a monitor.
15:32They're on the front line of a fentanyl epidemic,
15:35a synthetic opioid 50 times more potent and deadly than heroin,
15:40and hitting American cities like Las Vegas hard.
15:44We're going to go into downtown Las Vegas.
15:46We're going to go out and wait for calls for service.
15:52361. I'll be available for the day.
15:59A 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?
16:13You 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.
16:29Do 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
16:39of drug issues.
16:40You know, one of the problems with drugs that we find here is that, you know, you may think you're
16:45doing something,
16:45whether it be ecstasy or cocaine, but a lot of times these drugs are cut with something else.
16:52I recently had a case where we were called to evaluate a female at a festival, became unresponsive.
16:57Her 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.
17:15Right now is the busy time where we tend to see more call volume.
17:24We just got alerted that there's a female who is possibly overdosing in her car.
17:32I hope she's okay.
17:37Just up here.
17:38I feel it's that car right there.
17:40We're the first at the scene.
17:41Oh my gosh.
17:42Hey, what's going on?
17:43She wasn't breathing.
17:44Are we trying to wake her up?
17:45Her lips seem falling blue.
17:47She's hungry, bud.
17:48I know what it look like.
17:50Okay, she's got a pulse.
17:52Do we know what drug she's on?
17:58Yeah, she's got a pulse, not breathing.
18:01She's cyanotic, apneic.
18:03She's got pinpoint pupils.
18:04You want fun?
18:05Wake up.
18:15Absolutely awful.
18:22This is definitely the side of Vegas that you don't really realize exists until you see it yourself.
18:29Your heart rate of 124.
18:33All right, I marked your Narcan, both of them, on your monitor as a generic event.
18:45Well done.
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, she started to wake up with the Narcan.
19:02The fact that she had pinpoint pupils.
19:04She had, you know, cyanotic lips, possibly heroin, possibly fentanyl.
19:08But we didn't find any drugs in the car.
19:10She didn't have the needle in her arm.
19:11So we really don't know.
19:13Is she breathing now?
19:14Is she okay?
19:15So she is, yeah.
19:15It was quite shocking to me.
19:17I think when I came to Vegas, I had a perception that it was going to be,
19:22you know, this glamorous, fun, glitzy place.
19:25And I'm slowly starting to learn that, you know, there's a bit of an underbelly.
19:32There'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,
19:52that's something I need to look into.
19:55Hello. Hi.
19:57Hi.
19:57Melanie Rouse is the Clark County Coroner.
20:00She investigates drug deaths in Vegas and works on an opiate task force,
20:06assessing the impact of drug abuse in and around the city.
20:10When 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
20:27drugs?
20:28Is that something that you've seen before?
20:29We have seen that. Typically, what you will find is that people that are purchasing drugs here
20:35may not know exactly what they are getting. We see what is commonly called M30s. So those are
20:40pills designed to look exactly like morphine tablets look, but really they're fake pressed and
20:46they contain fentanyl. You're also going to see those in Xanitabs. They look just like a Xanax bar,
20:52but they often contain fentanyl. And then you also have methamphetamine that is often adulterated with
20:57fentanyl. What 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
21:07substance and knowing that it can cause death. Does that tend to be tourists or people who live
21:12in Vegas? I would say it's a combination of both populations. So it is people that reside here as
21:16well as people that come here and seek to obtain drugs. We had over 600 opiate-related fatalities that
21:24occurred from October of 23 to August of 24. Compared to the rest of the states in the US,
21:30how does Vegas rank in terms of drug-related deaths? What we're experiencing across the country
21:35seems to be a decline in drug-related fatalities. Unfortunately, that's not a trend that we're
21:41seeing here in Southern Nevada. Ours is still increasing.
21:55I want to find out just how widespread the use of drugs are on the party scene.
22:02Willem is a former club promoter.
22:06Who knows more than most about the darker side to partying in the city.
22:12Is the demand quite high in Vegas, would you say, for drugs?
22:16Absolutely. Yeah. Vegas is an interesting place because of our tourism. For some years,
22:23I was a strip club promoter. So I was sending groups to the strip club. You know, if you had
22:29a group of
22:2910 guys that wanted to go to the strip club, they're going to party. You know what I mean? So
22:34the tourists are willing to pay a lot of money for the drugs, depending on what part of the world
22:39they come from. Was there like a particular kind of group that stood out? Australian bachelor parties,
22:44yeah. The Australians, really? That surprises me. Yeah. What about the Brits? The Brits? Um, yeah,
22:51definitely. Yeah. They, um, they like cocaine. Yeah. There's a lot of drugs here. Yeah.
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. I became addicted to heroin,
23:19and when you develop a habit that's costing you a thousand dollars a day, usually selling drugs is the
23:26best option, unfortunately. So I used to sell drugs here in Vegas. Did you?
23:32Mm-hmm. What sort of drugs were you selling, if you don't mind me asking? Heroin, meth,
23:39cocaine, ecstasy, Xanax.
23:43I would sell to friends, other people that were in my circle that were using, um, and then, yeah, tourists.
23:52I've been sober for, uh, two years now. How long were you using for, would you say?
23:58For over, over 20 years. I got to Vegas when I was a sophomore in high school, and I was
24:06addicted by the
24:06time I was a senior. So, yeah. Would you say that it's quite easy to get addicted to drugs in
24:12Vegas?
24:12Have you seen that happen to a lot of people? It's easy to get addicted to drugs anywhere.
24:16But with the amount of tourism that we have and the amount of money that flows through the city,
24:20there is a higher demand for drugs on the strip. So, as a teenager or a young person, drugs are
24:28an issue here.
24:30Willem says he never sold fentanyl, but its arrival in Vegas turned his life upside down.
24:38There's a fentanyl issue across America, but Vegas definitely got hit hard.
24:46It was showing up in cocaine and, you know, other drugs. People that were not intending to use fentanyl,
24:53they were OD'ing and dying. I transitioned from heroin to fentanyl in 2019, 2020. I was functional
25:03on heroin for 20 years, but when I started using fentanyl, my life completely fell apart. Within about
25:09a year of starting to use fentanyl, I found myself homeless. Wow. Um, I ended up on Las Vegas
25:16Boulevard, homeless, for almost two years, a year and a half, two years. There's a lot of low points
25:29over a 25-year addiction. This was definitely one of my low points. America's opioid crisis kills tens
25:39of thousands of thousands of people a year. Since 2021, it's been the leading cause of death for
25:45Americans aged between 18 and 45. In Vegas, fentanyl's impact is felt across the city,
25:53even around the glitz and glamour of the strip. We are just off Las Vegas Boulevard
26:01at the Diamond Inn Motel. We are literally just steps away from the tourist corridor. You know,
26:09Mandalay Bay is right across the street. This 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.
26:21This is where I spent the majority of the last couple of years of my addiction.
26:26I got arrested here multiple times, watched people overdose, saved some people from overdosing here.
26:35With how dangerous fentanyl is and for those types of drugs to be in such close proximity to
26:42the tourists, that's a dangerous combination. There's a misconception about drug addicts.
26:50The people that are out here on the streets are not terrible people. Addiction is a monster.
26:56Society has kind of brushed them aside.
27:09With 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.
27:22The champion is willing to do what no one else is willing to do. That means keeping my mind,
27:27body and spirit clean. As well as physical training, Steve Bowe's boxing gym offers support
27:33to young residents of Vegas. Are drugs and alcohol good for you guys?
27:37No, coach! We've lost two kids in the last few months, right, to fentanyl overdose and they have died.
27:44Anybody recognize this? What's this, guys? It's a vape. What are drug dealers doing with vapes?
27:50You want to guess? Make it all color and shine. You don't know what's in here.
27:54I'll tell you, it's fentanyl. This killed one of our kids. He had everything going for him.
28:01It starts like this and it ends like the poor homeless people that you see outside everywhere.
28:05The choices that you're going to make over the next couple of years are going to be critical.
28:09If you need help, come talk to me. Talk to your parents. We're here.
28:14I'm a counselor, man. You're upset and depressed. You know what you do?
28:17You come hit the bags as hard as you can. Are you ready?
28:21Yes, coach! Let's go! Hit those bags right now. Go!
28:36What do you know about how dangerous fentanyl is?
28:39Fentanyl is probably the most dangerous drug there is.
28:41Have you seen a lot of people taking it?
28:43Yeah, people die. You walk down the street, you'll see people just sitting just stiff,
28:50can't move because they're off the fentanyl.
28:56Nothing good comes in. It tore up my family.
28:58Really?
28:59Fentanyl tore up my family. My uncle passed away from that.
29:02That's not me, you know? I want to stay away from that and I want to make something of myself.
29:11It really helped a lot of kids. Introduce them to boxing, talk about good grades,
29:16staying away from drugs and alcohol, making good choices so they have a good life.
29:21So it's almost like a boxing rehabilitation program.
29:25Yes, that's exactly what it is. I would say 90% of my job is counseling and mentoring.
29:30I'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.
29:46Despite the billions of dollars pouring in on the strip, one in eight Vegas residents
29:50live 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
30:01-year-old
30:02than it was for me to go get a job. Is that something that you did?
30:04Yes. I went down the wrong path. I went into the streets, did drugs, alcohol, the party life,
30:10and I just gave up in life completely. I sobered up eight years ago from everything and I chose this
30:16gym because Coach Bo, he does stuff for troubled kids that I didn't have. I watched my best friend
30:21overdose in front of me when I was 15. He was 14 off of Xanax pills. We fell asleep and
30:26we woke
30:26up and he was blue. Blue to the face. I'm so sorry. That must have been really hard.
30:31A lot of the kids you've seen that were here went through similar things as me.
30:35That's how it is here in Vegas. Either we're losing a friend from gang violence to prison to overdosing.
30:40I think people have a perception of Vegas which is that it's very glamorous. There's a lot of glitz.
30:45There's a lot of money pumped into it. They like to focus everything into the entertainment
30:50so they can bring money in. They don't care. They leave us to the side. It's like the Hunger Games
30:54basically. That's how we live here in Vegas. It's the casino owners and the celebrities,
30:59they get to live their lives peacefully while we're out here trying to survive.
31:03And a lot of kids are suffering because of it.
31:08There you put your hands in. Let's go. One, two, three.
31:12Go boxing!
31:13Excellent class today, guys. You gave me chills, man. Appreciate your hard work.
31:17Incredible young people.
31:26The casino industry paid billions in taxes, supports charities,
31:32and runs foundations set up to benefit local communities.
31:39But with drug deaths rising, it's clear the city still has big challenges to overcome.
31:58It's clear the state.
32:02Round the clock parties and global music stars aren't the only big plays Las Vegas has made to attract new
32:09visitors.
32:11looking forward to what's going to be great week of rugby over there
32:16look out vegas sport is at the heart of the city's new image
32:23from the super bowl as a kid i dreamed about these moments that i'm actually out here
32:30to formula one the high demand for tickets has proven that this is an event no one will forget
32:35ufc the return of the notorious conor mcgregor in las vegas and nevada boxing this is the biggest
32:43fight in a decade and even ice hockey you wouldn't call vegas a traditional hockey market but the
32:50buildings filled with fans every night in less than 10 years vegas has gone from having no
32:55professional sports teams to becoming a host for some of the world's biggest sporting events
33:04which generate almost two billion dollars a year for the city
33:15and where there is sport there will be a market for sports betting too
33:20which the casinos have embraced in full vegas style
33:26circa is one of the newest in town they say they have the world's largest sports book
33:31or bookies welcome to circa there's a lot to look at right
33:39this is a three-story thousand capacity venue facing a huge 145 foot wide screen
33:47that broadcast multiple live sports from across the world
33:53i have never seen anything like this it's massive
33:57mike palm is president of operations here we've been operating six years here we've seen our sports
34:05business really expand exponentially over that time as it's become more mainstream it's now a big
34:11regulated industry that you have most of the casinos involved in would you say that sports betting
34:17has become more popular than classic gambling i think it's different for different companies i think
34:22table games is sort of phasing out because it's very labor-intensive and as we continue to increase
34:28the minimum wage and the cost of health care the cost to employ a worker raises so much that it
34:35really
34:35cuts into the margin of table games so sports which can be done in a big setting like this but
34:40also on our
34:41phones right we have these big beautiful books but still over 80 percent 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 so
34:52i think
34:52sports is rising as table games is declining a recent poll the american gaming association showed
34:58close 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 so obviously that's a big increasing market
35:09we see the influence of folks that came from playing daily fantasy sports
35:12like fantasy football now converting into sports betters
35:17and by mixing sports with the city's pool party culture circa have created what has to be the most
35:24glamorous bookies in the world
35:29stadium 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
35:43all
35:43the beautiful bodies at the same time the kiosks are down there to make your bets or if you have
35:48a
35:48phone account nfl sundays 3 000 people up there 3 000 up there and they pay 10 000 for a
35:55cabana wow
35:56they pay 5 000 for a seat in the sports book on an nfl sunday people say that's an outrageous
36:01price
36:02i would say yes but if they pay it is it i mean that's what the demand is
36:08the casino's own betting app lets visitors place bets on their phones from the poolside
36:16gambling on digital devices has become the norm
36:2070 of all bets on sport in the world were made from a mobile device in 2023
36:29slicker tech and sports are just two ways vegas is revamping gambling in the city
36:36but as one in 12 americans who bet either have or could develop a gambling problem
36:42there's a flip side to the fun
36:46they say in the 12-step group that i go to there's only three options for a gambler who doesn't
36:50stop
36:50it's prison insanity or death celebrities are promoting their favorite sports book or casino
36:56everywhere you look rob minick is an ex-gambling addict turned campaigner
37:02sports betting was his gateway to a life-changing addiction
37:06now he warns others of the dangers and i hope that you don't go down the same path that i
37:11did
37:13when i started i was just gambling with my friends on just fantasy football and early on
37:18it kind of went well like there were some wins along the way but i wanted things faster than my
37:22friends
37:23did and i wanted more action and within a month i was already doing regular sports betting and
37:27in america that's three years under age and i was lying about my address my age trying to just get
37:32as
37:32many bets as in as i could and i wouldn't stop until the middle of the night it was a
37:36compulsion after
37:37a month as you develop a problem what happens is you start to isolate and you start to lie about
37:43it to friends and family i mean the number of times i would run off to the bathroom to check
37:46on bets
37:47or place bets it was incredible and there's a certain shame to that but i couldn't stop because
37:52to me as i developed the addiction it wasn't just about feeling adrenaline anymore it's just about
37:57feeling okay my brain had literally rewired itself to the point that i only cared about getting that next
38:03bet 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
38:29and another half a million here we're looking at roughly nine and a half million this is mickey
38:36mace a notorious vegas gambler who claims to have won over 32 million dollars valentine's day 5.7
38:45million and some change he helps mega stars like drake and lil baby win big 25 hands only lose one
38:54thanks to my man his exploits attracted over a quarter of a million followers on social media
39:00and at first won the goodwill of the casinos but he claims when he won too much he fell out
39:07of favor
39:07with the casinos who no longer welcome him on the strip i've come out to the desert to meet him
39:29hello how you doing good thanks how are you good i'm tier nice to meet you mickey what a pleasure
39:37what did you come here for originally i was just living the young rich bachelor life looking for
39:43things to do like i love to gamble i love debauchery i love like chaos and so you came to
39:48vegas you started
39:49gambling were you winning big the end of my career i was winning a net profit of a million dollars
39:54a
39:54week a million dollars a week right and how do the high rollers in vegas live my lifestyle as a
40:01high
40:01roller in vegas was quite lavish they would give me private jets they would give me helicopter rides
40:07anywhere i wanted they 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 who's they the casinos they gave all of that to you correct
40:16they'll do anything really to accommodate you staying in that building specifically at the
40:21table as long as possible the casinos do a lot of things some are obvious and some aren't there's no
40:27clocks they are constantly keeping the temperature cold to keep people awake give you free alcohol to
40:33keep everybody making bad moral decisions if you go into any of the casinos today you'll see that every
40:39hallway is just slightly curved and the reason for that is they want to subconsciously direct you to
40:44certain places to spend money or lose money so you think that casinos are designed to help people
40:49to lose 100 but i saw through it and i kept winning there was a tipping point and each casino
40:55had their
40:56own threshold for financial pain and as each one ticked away i'd get banned one at a time from each
41:02casino
41:02so you sort of went from being the casino's best client to not being allowed back in at all i
41:09was
41:10actually never a good client i was their most hopeful client the amounts that i was winning
41:15they assumed over long term i'd give all that money back and then some but that never happened
41:20and now i'm banned at almost every casino in the world is that legal is that a thing yeah it's
41:25private
41:26business and they could refuse service for any reason or no reason these casinos were built exclusively
41:31on losers this whole city is built in the middle of the desert as far as you can see there's
41:36nothingness
41:37what is the city doing in the middle of this desert it's exclusively built on losers money
41:49so far in vegas i've seen how the casino industry have successfully transformed the city
41:55and why this new image would be so appealing to a younger generation of tourists
42:03but i've discovered a darker side too how crime and the lethal drug fentanyl have infiltrated the party
42:10scene and claims that protecting its image might be keeping the real las vegas under wraps
42:17next time i'm going to dig a bit deeper they don't want the violence to be known of what goes
42:24on here
42:24this is our area bro i told you i discover a side of vegas most tourists won't see we serve
42:32800 trays
42:33of food a day is someone in there they're checking it out i go underground to meet people living beneath
42:40the city how do you find it living down here out of sight out of mind outside out of mind
42:46and i find out
42:49how the city's rebrand like it's not safe for us right now has impacted its famous sex industry
42:56what they're doing is really pushing sex workers further underground and that's a perfect storm
43:02there's kind of a saying we have people come to vegas to kill sex workers
43:37so
43:38you
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