See that huge golden lion on our right? That’s Leo, the MGM Grand Lion! Let’s pause to admire all his majesty.
45 feet tall and weighing 50 tons, this lion is one of the largest bronze sculptures in the United States. It honors the real-life Leo the Lion, who roared from the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer logo before the opening credits of every MGM film from 1957 until 2021! The new logo is actually CGI, though it still replicates Leo’s iconic appearance and, of course, that famous roar.

Note: This 4+ miles-long tour covers the essentials of the Las Vegas Strip in 1-2 hours.

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The casino on our right is none other than the MGM Grand. The casino debuted its new location here in 1993, a time of booming development on the Strip.

True to its name, it was the grandest resort of its time. Its hotel boasts 6,852 rooms, making it the third largest in the entire world!

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Did you know The Strip isn’t technically in Las Vegas? It actually exists in an unincorporated town called Paradise! See, this land was totally unincorporated all the way until 1950.

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On our right stands Planet Hollywood Resort and Casino. In operation since 2007, Planet Hollywood Las Vegas is one of the younger resorts on the Strip. This used to be the site of the Aladdin casino, which operated from 1966 until 1997.

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Look to our right, and you might feel like we’ve crossed to a different continent! Well, sort of. This is Paris, Las Vegas. Home to replicas of the Eiffel Tower, Arc de Triomphe, and La Fontaine des Mers, and a facade that combined elements of the Louvre, the Musee d’Orsay, and the Paris Opera House. It opened in 1999, as the brainchild of French cinema icon and native Parisian Catherine Deneuve.

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That’s Horseshoe Las Vegas, which opened in 2023 on the former site of Bally’s Las Vegas and, before that, the old MGM Grand. Its name pays tribute to Binion’s Horseshoe, a casino on the patch of Fremont Street known as “Glitter Gulch” that operated for nearly 40 years under the legendary Benny Binion. I’ll tell you more about him in just a moment.

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To our right is the Flamingo Hotel and Casino, which opened in 1946. It’s the oldest continuously operating resort on the Strip. This flamboyant resort became the model for all the high-end resorts that came to define the Strip in the 1950s and ‘60s. The Art Deco architecture evoked Miami Beach, and the Flamingo welcomed guests with an opulence scarcely imaginable in rough and tumble Las Vegas. It treated them to plush accommodations, fine dining, A-list entertainers, and round-the-clock gambling. The Flamingo even dressed dealers in white suits and tails and asked that players remove their hats in the casino.

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On our right stands Harrah’s Las Vegas, which has occupied its spot in the heart of the Strip since 1992. For 20 years prior to that, this site was the location of the Holiday Inn and Casino, notable in Strip history for having been one of the few casinos run by a woman.

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That huge structure on our right is none other than the famous Venetian. This used to be the site of the Sand Resort, a favorite haunt of Frank Sinatra and his Rat Pack. But I’ll get to that a little later.

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You’re not just seeing things, on our right stands The Mirage. Like the Flamingo before it, this resort’s appearance in 1989 provided a glimpse into the city’s future.
Business magnate Michael Milken funded The Mirage. He sold $525 million of bonds to pay for its construction. But then, eight months before The Mirage’s opening, Milken was indicted on 98 counts of racketeering and securities fraud. Whoops! Still, owner Steve Wynn always gave him due credit. “Mike is the one who changed us,” Wynn once said, “No Mike, no Mirage.”

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On our right stands the mighty Caesars Palace, which has thrived here since 1966 Among those at the grand opening was Jimmy Hoffa, president of the Teamsters. The notorious union-slash-crime boss had helped fund the resort’s construction!

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To our right stands the Bellagio Hotel and Casino, which opened in 1998. It gets its name from a village on the banks of Lake Como in northern Italy. Developer Steve Wynn initially proposed constructing a 50-acre lake on the site, and an island in the middle of it for a French-Alpine themed resort, which was to be named Beau Rivage. But then Wynn and his wife took a vacation to Lake Como.

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To our right is ARIA Resort and Casino. ARIA opened in 2009 with the goal of modernizing the Strip with some seriously high tech innovations. Hotel rooms are automated and respond as soon as a guest enters. The curtains open, the TV and lights turn on, music starts playing, and climate controls kick in. When a guest leaves, the room shuts itself down to conserve power, all without anyone having to touch a single switch! In a city dominated by old fashioned style and old school sensibilities, ARIA definitely stands out.

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On our right is CityCenter, also known as the ARIA Campus. This sprawling multi-use complex includes the ARIA Resort and Casino, the Waldorf Astoria hotel and condominiums, the Vdara Hotel and Spa, Veer Towers condominiums, The Shops at Crystals, and a vast shopping mall.

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To our right stands the Waldorf Astoria. No, not that Waldorf Astoria. The Vegas recreation, of course! Waldorf Astoria’s flagship hotel in New York City has been a Park Avenue fixture for nearly a century. In that time, it has seen everyone from gangster Frank Costello to brutal Cuban dictator Fulgencio Batista!

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Coming up on our right is Park MGM itself, the only totally smoke-free casino on the Strip. It’s a bigger and more modern resort from MGM, albeit without the history of the MGM Grand. But do all these sleek, modern buildings have you hankering for the Las Vegas of the past? Let’s hear a little about that bygone era as we walk!

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Opened in 1997, New York-New York crowds the highpoints of the Manhattan skyline and a block of other NYC landmarks onto its facades. From left to right, the hotel emulates the Lever House, the Empire State Building, 55 Water Street, the Century Building, Liberty Plaza, the New Yorker Hotel, the Seagram Building, the Chrysler Building, and the CBS Building. But that’s not all! From left to right, the casino is fronted by fiberglass replicas of the New York Public Library, the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, the Statue of Liberty, Ellis Island Center, Grand Central Terminal, and the Brooklyn Bridge.

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Besides being an iconic example of the city’s bizarre desire to imitate other places, this also became the source of a major stamp scandal back in 2010! Here’s what happened

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On our right rises the cartoonish facade of Excalibur Hotel and Casino, named for the famous sword in the legend of King Arthur. Rumors of this castle being torn down have circled in recent years as widely and un-verifiably as those Arthurian legends circled in the Middle Ages. But here it stands, as sturdy as ever! Lodged firmly within the Strip like a sword in a stone.

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Off to our right, across the parking lots, stands the Luxor Hotel and Casino, which opened in 1993. Named for an ancient Egyptian city, this resort has lost some of its luster over the years, but it used to be a major highlight of the Strip. A lot of that was thanks to the Luxor Sky Beam, which shoots straight up from the peak of the pyramid and can be seen from anywhere in the Las Vegas Valley.

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It’s impossible to miss that towering hotel up ahead on our right. That’s Mandalay Bay, which opened in 1999. Early in its development, the resort was called Project Paradise, and ownership tested dozens of other names before settling on Mandalay Bay. Mandalay is the second largest city in Myanmar, and sits on the bank of the Irrawaddy River. But it’s hundreds of miles from the nearest bay. So why “Mandalay Bay?”

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