Government has long been the willing handmaiden of that which drives the Nevada economy, looking the other way when necessary, providing a helping hand when possible.
It is no accident that Oscar Goodman, who made his name and his fortune representing mobsters and hit men, is the mayor of Las Vegas.
Among his current proposals are the legalization of prostitution in the city of Las Vegas and building a "mob museum" to enshrine the city's criminal heritage.
"We have turned vice into a virtue," Rothman said with a wry sense of wonder.
Las Vegas may be in the midst of another of its constant reinventions. The decades from the late 1940s through the late 1970s were the mob era. From 1981 to 2001, Las Vegas saw phenomenal growth and the advent of the mega-resorts, along with a shift in image from naughty to family-friendly and back again. The next decade will probably bring another business model, although legalized vice will still be at its core.
"The city has recharacterized itself time and again, like a chameleon," said Miller, the former governor.
He said that the price of entry on the Strip had become so high that further consolidation is likely, with a shrinking number of larger and more powerful concerns dominating the landscape in the year to come.
"Just like the old days," he said.
But with the rapid growth of the Las Vegas region, new power centers are beginning to emerge after a half-century of dominance by the gambling industry and its offshoots. Real estate developers, banks, retailing giants, highway contractors, auto dealers, small businesses -- interests that wield political and economic power in "normal" cities -- are beginning to make their weight felt.
"They are ready to take on the big dogs for the first time and really stand up to the gambling industry," said Guy Rocha, the Nevada state archivist.
"Nevada may be moving in a new direction, where the gambling industry can no longer do things by fiat," Rocha said.
If that happens, he said, it will truly mark a revolutionary moment in Nevada history.
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