17 things Vegas does better than anywhere else

Las Vegas wouldn’t be one of the most iconic tourism and vacation destinations in the world if it didn’t kick ass at a few things. In fact there are at least 17 things we are better at than any other place on Earth, and that doesn't even include Sin City's strip clubs -- because that would be too easy. Now if only the strippers were.

DISTILL

1. Restaurants

The Strip is practically a shoot gallery of the world’s top celebrity chefs. Every casino worth its salt gives a home to a Michelin-starred chef and deals out the best food you’re ever going to eat. The hard part is actually deciding what great thing to eat. Oh, wait... no it isn't.
 

2. Wine

It’s not a coincidence that Las Vegas has the most master sommeliers in the country. When you're eating a $500 dinner at one those celebrity chef'd restaurants, your wine pairing better be on point. And, dear lord, it sure will.

MGM RESORTS INTERNATIONAL

3. Gambling

Never mind the Strip, you can gamble everywhere here. You can play blackjack while getting coffee at 7-Eleven. Most bars have built-in gaming. There are casinos that make up old Vegas (Fremont and Las Vegas Blvd), plus smaller, less-notorious casinos everywhere from the Southeast to the Northwest suburbs. Basically, Vegas will gamble your pants off, so suck it, Atlantic City.
 

4. Circus performer employment

Besides the Olympics and Russian high schools, you won’t find a larger population of circus performers, freaks, geeks, and gymnasts anywhere. Seriously, go to a bar late one night when Cirque du Soleil is off, the amount of beautiful, ripped people with Eastern European accents will blow your friggin’ mind.
 

5. Bachelor parties

The city infrastructure is practically tailor-made for the last night of freedom. There are gun ranges everywhere from the Strip to the desert, a 4.2mi bar crawl, and tons of strip clubs. If ever there was a place that catered to being a man-boy with a ridiculous budget for entertainment, it’s Vegas.

PIN UP

6. Toplessness

You don't need a strip club to see nearly naked women. In fact, even just a cursory glance at local Instagram accounts between the months of March and October will show that you can find missing shirts just about anywhere, but mostly at the nutty amount of clothing optional pools (or “toptional”, according to billboard advertisements) scattered around town.
 

7. Prostitution

When it comes to prostitution, Las Vegas does it the best. Okay, so technically it's no better at legal prostitution than say, Phoenix, and it's way worse than Pahrump (which is just an hour away), where there are famous and legal bonafide sex-for-money brothels with theme rooms and girls with all of their teeth.

Flickr/GW Fins

8. 24-hour drinking

There is no state-mandated bar close time in Las Vegas, and while some bars will still pack it in at 2 or 4am, an overwhelming majority, especially those with the aforementioned gambling machines built into the bar, stay open 24 hours. Heck, there are parties in Vegas that start at 4am. It's a city where demand decides when bars close, which is the best/most dangerous thing ever.
 

9. Drinking in general

Even though Las Vegas is best known for sky-scraping booze slushies on the Strip, the culinary draw here also grabs the attention of people who want something a little more complicated than a rum and coke. The result is a slew of bars that can stand up to cities like Los Angeles, Portland, and New York -- mostly, because that’s where we stole the bartenders from.
 

10. Scaring Uber drivers

Uber recently launched in Las Vegas, and people on the side of the Nevada Taxicab Authority have already begun putting on ski masks and accosting Uber drivers while their passengers are in the car. Classy guys.

THE MOB MUSEUM

11. Marriage

It's quite possible that people don’t get married in Las Vegas intentionally, but after a certain hour at certain places on Las Vegas Blvd, your options are either pizza or nuptials. And some of the places for the latter are downright strange. Plus, if the marriage bed gets cold as quickly the pizza, the options to get it annulled are just as frequent.
 

12. Winter

This winter, just like the last few winters, we will probably go lie out by the pool and read a book during lunchtime because it will be somewhere between 60 and 70 degrees outside, with exactly zero clouds in the sky, and we will laugh. Oh, will we laugh because while we have to suffer through triple-digit temperatures in summer, it's never really "winter" here. Oh, and just to make people in cold-weather cities really furious: if we want to go skiing, there’s a mountain with a foot or two of snow approximately 45 minutes away.

AL POWERS, POWERS IMAGERY

13. Nightclubs

No, your city doesn’t have better clubs than Vegas. Yes, New York and LA have a few, but in sheer quantity and quality combined, Las Vegas takes the glitter-blasted cake. Hakkasan and Marquee alone are enough to put Vegas in the rankings -- and they’re right next to each other. After that there are still roughly five miles of casinos, all with nightclubs where you can hear world-class, and some not-so-world-class, DJs.
 

14. EDM

Major residencies at the aforementioned Vegas clubs are already making a trip to Ibiza practically unnecessary for dance music fans. Then there's the biggest dance festival in world, Electric Daisy Carnival, a weekend-long, doesn’t-end-until-the-sun’s-up celebration of pounding electronic music, and (unsurprisingly) toplessness, which even if you haven't been too, you already know by the psychedelic billboards posted every couple of miles from here to Los Angeles.

TAO BEACH

15. Pool parties

Against anyone’s better judgement, you can still come to Las Vegas in the 120-degree height of summer and dance your ass off at a cabana bar while Calvin Harris DJs a few feet away. Which is weird and surreal for anyone from, say, Kansas. But here, it’s just what happens when you go for a swim on Labor Day weekend.

16. Blowing things up

Never mind the fact that you can spend your bachelor party blowing up old cars, Las Vegas’ flair for the new and exciting means it has imploded more old buildings (mostly shuttered casinos) than some small Southwestern cities have ever seen.

17. Hating itself

Las Vegans are crazy hypocrites. They constantly bash Las Vegas for its lack of culture (and the culture it does cultivate), the people, the Strip, etc., but the minute an outsider talks ill of the city, its locals are immediately up in arms to protect its virtue. Good luck figuring out which ones will agree with your naysaying and which will punch you in the ear for it.

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