Sunday, January 26, 2025

When I stayed in the Flamingo hotel & casino on the Las Vegas Strip, why was the city "Paradise" instead of "Las Vegas" when I got the passport badge for it?

I couldn't find the Las Vegas passport badge itself and what should've been Las Vegas was named Paradise instead. So what gives?

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[–]Responsible_Onion_21F2P Mayor 38 points 5 months ago

The reason you got a Paradise badge instead of a Las Vegas one at the Flamingo is because of an interesting geographical quirk - the Las Vegas Strip isn't actually in Las Vegas! The Strip, including the Flamingo, is technically located in an unincorporated town called Paradise, Nevada.

This dates back to 1950, when casino owners (including the Flamingo's Gus Greenbaum) pushed to create Paradise as a separate township to avoid paying Las Vegas city taxes. They'd only have to pay county taxes this way. The actual City of Las Vegas starts around the Stratosphere (now The STRAT).

So Atlas Earth is actually being geographically accurate by giving you a Paradise badge! While everyone thinks of the Strip as "Las Vegas" (and the whole area is marketed that way), the game follows real administrative boundaries. That's why you couldn't find a Las Vegas badge for that location - you were technically in Paradise, Nevada the whole time.

This is one of those fun cases where a game's attention to geographical detail reveals something most people don't know about a famous location. The more you know! 🎲