Las Vegas is a lot of things. Sophisticated isn’t necessarily one of them. For the town that pretends to be too cool for the room is more like an eager suck up desperate to be favored by the most popular in the class.

This is a town that lives for celebrity worship. Much more than New York, way more than even LA now, the slightest – and I mean slightest – celebrity sighting is cause for commotion. In Casear’s the other night, the presence of a B-list movie shooting almost ground the entire casino to a halt. People stood up on top of chairs, leaned over slot machines, pushed each other out of the way, all for the slightest glimpse…of actors they’ve never heard of.

What happens in Vegas, doesn’t just stay in Vegas. It gets endlessly replayed in Des Moines and Duluth. And the tourists aren’t the only ones with star fixations. The casinos are now fully into the act. After shunning cameras for years, now every high end place in town is courting them. The success of movies like Ocean’s 11 and TV shows like CSI Las Vegas – not to mention the resulting venue revenue bumps – have turned casinos into camera junkies. And don’t even get me started on the Palms. This underwhelming casino isn’t even a spot, let alone a hot spot, if wasn’t for that MTV Real World appearance a few years ago.

The cameras and film crews are here to stay. Along with the people desperate to watch it all. Even if they’re not sure quite who they are cranning their necks to see.

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