Do you like the people in Las Vegas?

Why do hawaiian people like Las Vegas so much?

• my former room mate from oahu just went to Vegas. also his sister moved there from the big island. and a lot of other people i know in the islands like to go also. WHY???

• Answer:

  If you google "eighth island" "vegas" and "hawaii" you'll see a number of references to Las Vegas being called the "eighth island" of hawaii. ---------- For some reason, many Asians have a strong affinity for gambling. In only a few years, Macau has surpassed the gambling revenue of Las Vegas, and they are doing it with roughly half the number of tourists. ------------ As the US state with the largest Asian population, combined with cheap charters to Las Vegas, it is very attractive to the Hawaiian population. Boyd Gaming has three hotels in downtown Las Vegas where roughly 2/3 of their guests are Hawaiians. ============= Interestingly enough Utah and Hawaii are the only two states with no legalized gambling. The strong Mormon presence in Utah accounts for the lack of gaming there. In Hawaii it seems to be more a paternal concern for the citizenry. The theory is that tourists who want to gamble have far less expensive options than Hawaii, so that if they legalize casinos it will only attract the local population. ----------------- The concern is justified. A surprising amount of the revenue in Nevada comes from local citizenry. There are now about 180,000 slot machines in Nevada, and only 50,000 in the Las Vegas strip area. There is a lot of local people feeding the machines which are in thousands of locations. If you are restricted to 15 slots or less it is very easy to get a license, so convenience stores, grocery stores, small bars, and many other establishments have machines.