Alternate locations for a US Sin City?
- Thread starter Sevarics
- Start date
New Orleans would have a head start. As a port city it has a long history of providing whatever entertainment the ship crews wanted. You then add in rich planters and merchants traveling to New Orleans on business and then fun without the people back home knowing what they were doing. It is part of the culture of New Orleans.
There were several factors that made Las Vegas what it is today.
First there was already legalized gambling in Nevada while the other locations mentioned it was banned.
Two the other locations were already established cities and Las Vegas was basically a small town that was undefined.
Three the construction of the Hoover Dam brought cheap electricity and water to Las Vegas.
Four the Interstate Highway System went thru Las Vegas and made travel from Southern California by car in six hours of less possible, also with Las Vegas so close to Southern California many entertainers could appear on the weekends and be back to work on Monday.
Five the jets that came in the late fifties allowed for anybody to be in Las Vegas from any where in the United States or Canada in less than five hours so a quick weekend getaway became feasible.
First there was already legalized gambling in Nevada while the other locations mentioned it was banned.
Two the other locations were already established cities and Las Vegas was basically a small town that was undefined.
Three the construction of the Hoover Dam brought cheap electricity and water to Las Vegas.
Four the Interstate Highway System went thru Las Vegas and made travel from Southern California by car in six hours of less possible, also with Las Vegas so close to Southern California many entertainers could appear on the weekends and be back to work on Monday.
Five the jets that came in the late fifties allowed for anybody to be in Las Vegas from any where in the United States or Canada in less than five hours so a quick weekend getaway became feasible.
It might be a bit of a longshot but Phenix City,Alabama might work on a smaller scale.
https://malefactorsregister.com/wp/the-fall-and-rise-of-phenix-city/
You know a place is bad when the national guard gives it a campaign medal.
https://malefactorsregister.com/wp/the-fall-and-rise-of-phenix-city/
You know a place is bad when the national guard gives it a campaign medal.
Would that be with or without the 1900 Hurricane?
Utica New York was known as the Sin City of the East so possibly there? They had a huge mob presence.
It existed OTL, so...
The problem with the Free State, or most of these other proposals, is that they exist in states that are big enough that they can "overwhelm" the Sin City politically and make it have to operate illegally. This is basically what did Galveston in; sure, Galveston might have been okay with all that sin going on, but Dallas? Austin? Much less Lubbock or Odessa...so it was basically something that could exist only as long as the rest of Texas wasn't bothered enough by it to clean it up. Once they decided that the Free State had to go, it went. Las Vegas, by contrast, was a big proportion of the population in its state, so it had outsized political leverage. Thus, instead of having to do everything on the down-low, vice pushers could just operate in the open.
So what you need to do to find an alternative is to find somewhere where not only can vice be the main or at least a major industry, but also which is big enough relative to the state it operates in that it dominates politics there, meaning that the vice can be legal and the pushers can operate openly. The obvious possibility that comes to mind--to me, anyway--is Honolulu, but it's probably too remote, the state's political scene too dominated by sugar and pineapple interests in the first half of the century, and the state's existing population too socially conservative for things to come together the way they did for Las Vegas. It would be amusing, though, especially since Las Vegas is the favorite mainland destination of most locals...
They also had the Storyville neighborhood just outside the Quarter, where brothels were legal until WW1.
I mean, Atlantic City was the Sin City of choice between New York City and Philadelphia, at least.
The problem is that gambling was illegal in New Jersey until the mid-70s, which limited the scope of what could happen (the numerous casinos were all simply "hotels" or "nightclubs", and the police thoroughly corrupt).
How about somewhere in Delaware? It's a small state, so like Nevada permissive laws (or lack thereof) could be established with the intent to draw visitors to the state. It's very close to New York, Philadelphia, and Washington DC, and has a beach area (Lewes/Rehoboth Beach area is a decent candidate for this IMO).
That may work, it is a small state with low taxes so the revenue produced will have a significant impact on the budget.
There may be a need to carve out a special district that is under state control where casino gambling is allowed so that the taxes that are generated are spread out to the rest of the state instead of staying in one locality.
Deleted member 94680
It survived the hurricane OTL and (according to wiki at least) kept going into the 50s where - and this is the part that caught my attention - only really died out when it lost many ‘characters’ to Las Vegas. Maybe have an ATL where this “brain drain” doesn’t happen?
Let's not forget to Atlantic City. It's real close to Boston, Manhattan Philadelphia,and Baltimore, just a luxurious boat ride away. In addition to low stakes gambling on the boat that's starts when you enter New Jersey Waters(the big action is in Atlantic City anything else would defeat the purpose) there could be live entertainment. Not to mention there are gentlemen who are experienced and running gambling enterprises in the general vicinity.
I had heard, prior to the explosion of legalized gambling in the US, that New Orleans was the city the casinos in Las Vegas were afraid would steal away customers if it legalized gambling. They considered it a more exotic destination than the desert or Atlantic City, and thought it would draw from all over the country...
Regards,
It wasn't very large, but Quincy, Illinois had a very raucous reputation from the twenties through the fifties with a red light district and organized crime. In 1952, Collier's magazine reported the place had more illegal slot machines in back rooms than the police could shut down. The mob boss was Leo Monckton. The names Ted Crowley and Hamann were popular in crime circles. The issue is, that enclaves of this type were very temporary.
There was gambling in the neighboring parishes to New Orleans (basically right across the line) until the mid 1950's...Beverly, which was mob owned and opened in 1945 was sort of a prototype of what they eventually did in Vegas.
If Josephus Daniels could be butterflied away as SECNAV in 1917, Storyville might still be there...
If Josephus Daniels could be butterflied away as SECNAV in 1917, Storyville might still be there...