If you want a drink in a casino, there's no need to look for a bar, instead, a tray-toting waitress will come and find you. Beers and cocktails are delivered free of charge to anyone hovering ear, let alone seated at, the tables and slot machines - and assuming you keep tipping the waitress, the supply with keep going around the clock.

All the casinos have at least one actual bar as well, normally located in the heart of the gaming area and invariably packed with cacophonous slot machines; even the ones at Bellagio have video poker screens inlaid into the solid marble counters. Customers who are actively gambling can usually get their drinks free. If you're staying at a major casino on the Strip or downtown, you'll have no difficulty finding a place to drink in your hotel.

Elsewhere, neighborhood bars do exist where you can drink and eat away from the frenzy of the casinos - the most popular local pub chain, PT's, has around twenty locations - but very few tourists bother to seek them out. Brewpubs too have appeared both in, and away from, the casinos; if your a beer drinker, you might prefer to seek them out, but don't expect anything special in terms of food, let alone that you're going to get away from the slot machines!

In the last few years, Las Vegas has witnessed an explosion of nightlife opportunities. The old-fashioned Las Vegas lounge has returned in force, both knowingly retro-styled for twenty-something rockers and lovingly re-created for older visitors looking to recapture the quieter but stil somehow deliciously decadent flavour of the Rat Pack era. The casinos are once more competing to hold exotic and characterful lounges - the Venetian - for example, currently offers three highly individual alternatives.

What's even more striking is that Las Vegas has finally come of age as an International clubbing capital. The opening of the stand-alone Club Utopia on the Strip in 1994 paved the way for a steady trickle of copycat ventures, but only since the start of the Millenium has the scene really taken off.

Live entertainment in Las Vegas remains a crucial component of the Las Vegas package, and the days of the big-budget "spectacular" are far from over. The tendancy nowadays is to rely on lavish stunts and special effects rather than global megastars.

Many stimulating contemporary productions are now available, in particular, the arty Canadian based circus / theater troupe, Cirque du Soleil, which has revolutionised attitudes toward what Las Vegas audiences might be able to handle.

To make sure that you can see a big-name show, especially on a weekend, it's essential to make reservations as far in advance as possible, if you're happy just to see whatever's available, however, most of the lesser shows are still selling tickets right up until showtime.