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Eight Unsettling Facts About Las Vegas You Probably Didn’t Know 

Michelle Wilson

Because it bills itself as “The Entertainment Capital of the World,” Las Vegas is widely regarded as one of the world’s most important centers for adult entertainment. It’s similar to an adult version of Disneyland. It is the most populous city in the United States state of Nevada, and it is located within the Mojave Desert. 

Las Vegas is commonly known as “Sin City,” and there is little doubt that this moniker was given to the city for a reason. Adults from all over the world travel there all year to spend their money on slot machines and table games, drinking copious amounts of alcohol, gawking at half-naked beautiful people, shopping for extravagant amounts of merchandise, and indulging themselves to the fullest extent possible. 

However, Las Vegas also has a truly sinister underbelly. Everyone is aware that money from organized crime had a significant impact on the city’s growth and development, and even though the mob has been mostly gone for a long time, the city still has a very seedy aspect to it. 

In this post, we’ll look at some of the lesser-known and more unpleasant aspects of Sin City, some of which are simply unsettling, while others are downright terrifying. Some of these aspects are mildly unsettling, while others are downright terrifying. Here are fifteen shocking facts about Las Vegas that you probably didn’t know. 

It is home to an entire community of people

Hotels, casinos, bars, nightclubs, restaurants, strip clubs, and a wide range of other establishments are all open around the clock in Las Vegas, giving the city’s surface the appearance of being constantly active. It is estimated that 40 million people visit each year, making it a very popular tourist destination; however, there is a secret, darker world operating beneath the city’s neon-lit streets. 

More than a thousand homeless people have taken refuge in the city’s network of flood tunnels, which spans more than 200 kilometers, creating a tragically unique, if not unique, community.

Even though it is dark and dreary, there is a major risk of disease, highly poisonous spiders lurk in the shadows, drug use is almost universal down there, and people carry weapons in abundance, the people who live in them have made homes of the tunnels, going as far as furnishing their particular living spaces with considerable care, with beds, chairs, ornaments, and shelves filled with their belongings. Even if it’s disheartening to consider, something is alluring about it. 

The Atom World’s Tourism 

Although there has never been an atomic bomb or nuclear testing in Las Vegas, there is a nuclear test site just over 100 kilometers (65 miles) to the north of the city. More than a hundred nuclear tests were conducted at this site during the 1950s and 1960s. Las Vegas had casinos at the time, and the city’s tourism industry was just getting started, but some visitors came for an entirely unexpected reason. Today, Las Vegas is a veritable tourist mecca, but it wasn’t always so. 

The city of Las Vegas took advantage of nearby nuclear testing and seized the opportunity to use them to bring in more tourists; thus, atomic tourism became a thing overnight. Showgirls in Las Vegas began wearing clothing and hairstyles resembling mushroom clouds, and casino roofs were crowded with test-viewing parties who watched the distant blasts and felt the tremors. Restaurant owners began theming their establishments in the aftermath of the nuclear tests. 

Even though efforts were made to plan the nuclear tests so that the radioactive fallout would be blown in the opposite direction, this wasn’t always the case, and there is a strong argument that the tests hurt the health of people living in Las Vegas as a result of the tests. Who would have guessed that atomic tourism would not be everything it was hyped up to be?! 

The Mississippi, Western Mississippi 

You may have heard of the Jim Crow laws, which were local and state laws in the United States Southern states that enforced racial segregation following the Reconstruction Era in the late nineteenth century. These laws were enacted in response to racial unrest during and after the Civil War. They were enacted by white legislators in Democratic-controlled states, where they remained in effect until 1965. It’s possible that their bond with Mississippi was the strongest of all. 

In the late 1950s, Las Vegas was dubbed “The Mississippi of the West” due to the severity of its segregation laws. This was a rather humiliating nickname for the city. Gamblers complained about the presence of people of different races, which resulted in the passage of several laws that forced the city’s African-American population to live on the West side of Las Vegas, in a drab area with dirt roads that were far from the glitz and glamour of the downtown area.

African Americans struggled to find work, their tents and wooden shacks lacked basic amenities like running water, and entertainers like Nat King Cole and Lena Horne were forced to stay on the west side of town and enter casinos through back doors. The first cracks in the segregation system appeared in 1960 when the Rat Pack refused to perform at the Sands Casino unless Sammy Davis Jr. was allowed to stay in the hotel with them. This was the event that resulted in the repeal of segregation laws. 

A Children’s “Trafficking” Center 

There is no doubt that sexuality is critical to the economic success of Las Vegas. There are numerous strip clubs, and it is impossible to walk down the strip for more than ten seconds without being handed call girl cards or seeing a vehicle pass by with a large photo of a woman wearing only a skimpy outfit displayed on its side. You might even see a car pass by with a glass cage attached to the back, with a real woman dressed provocatively inside. And, even though prostitution is against the law in Las Vegas, it is clear that it is still prevalent. 

However, everyone is aware of all of this, and it is also common knowledge that adult sex trafficking occurs. What is less well known about Las Vegas is its unfortunate role as a key hub for the trafficking of children for sexual purposes. Child sex trafficking is a massive and horrifying problem that occurs all over the world (as shown in the above image, a child is coerced into the s*x trade every two minutes), but Las Vegas is truly on par with any other location in terms of its prevalence. Since 1994, the city has housed over 2,000 children who have been victims of human trafficking for sexual exploitation. 

Tourists’ Behavior Is Appalling 

Even though Las Vegas encourages people to engage in risky behaviors such as gambling, drinking, and other similar activities, and despite what movies like The Hangover may imply about the people who visit Las Vegas, to afford to be there, you typically need to have a respectable amount of money that you have earned on your own. This, in turn, denotes a certain level of social status, so you would expect an acceptable level of class in terms of the average tourist’s behavior in Sin City; however, this is not the case in any way, shape, or form! 

While most visitors to Las Vegas are looking for a good time, locals working there have told stories that would make your skin crawl if you heard them. It has been reported that vacationers smeared feces all over their hotel rooms, that one man smelled a woman’s vomit before making out with the woman in question, that another man beat his wife in the middle of a casino for not winning on a slot machine, that another man peed in the middle of a busy road, and that a naked woman with a low-hanging labia twerked on stage, making the labia It has been reported that incidents like this occur daily. Sin City, keep your sophistication! 

High Rate Of Suicide 

Las Vegas appears to be an upbeat place to live, at least on the surface. People go there to unwind and have fun without having to worry about anyone else. It may surprise you to learn that Sin City has one of the highest suicide rates in the country, given all of the activities that people engage in there, such as riding roller coasters, playing card games, hanging out by swimming pools, and getting a little tipsy. 

To be more specific, the rate of suicide in Las Vegas is nearly three times higher than the national average. People who visit Las Vegas have a more than twofold increased risk of committing suicide, according to the findings of a study conducted by a researcher at the University of Nevada. Because suicide is such a common occurrence in Las Vegas, some hotels have expert cleaners on staff who can remove blood from hotel rooms (thanks largely due to people losing silly amounts of money in the casinos). 

How Far Will Hotels Go to Ensure Financial Successfulness? 

Money is everything in Las Vegas. The notorious layout of the casinos in Las Vegas hotels makes identifying the exits difficult, as there are no doors in sight, and there are no windows or clocks to help gamblers figure out what time it is. 

However, there is one method of obtaining funds that is extremely distressing, and it ties in with the final statement about Sin City’s high suicide rate. When a hotel learns that a guest has died in one of their rooms, the body is transferred to another. Why? The reason for this is that if police discover a dead body in a hotel room, the room must be placed under mandatory quarantine for two weeks. During this time, the hotel will be unable to collect any new revenue from the affected room. As a result, bodies are relocated to a different area of the resort’s property where quarantine is no longer required. 

Murder Rate Is Extremely High 

You should not let your fear of traveling prevent you from visiting Las Vegas because the city is widely regarded as a safe destination. You shouldn’t have to worry about your safety if you stay in well-lit areas, especially along the extremely popular strip. The strip, however, is not the only part of Las Vegas; the city also has some less desirable neighborhoods. North Las Vegas, for example, was one of the top ten most dangerous neighborhoods in the United States in 2010, with a violent crime rate 112 percentage points higher than the national average. 

Furthermore, Las Vegas has a high homicide rate that is roughly twice as high as that of Los Angeles and roughly fifty percent higher than that of New York City. Las Vegas has a significantly higher overall rate of violent crime, including assault and rape than the majority of other cities in the United States. Again, don’t let this deter you from traveling because tourist destinations are usually just as safe as homes. If you want to stay safe, avoid going off the beaten path or into any of the city’s less desirable areas.