John McDonnell, owner of Lucky's Tavern, a Bears-only bar, decorates in preparation for the Super Bowl. Photo by John Gurzinski.

The National Football League long has barred Las Vegas casinos from attaching the Super Bowl name to parties associated with the game.

The casinos might want a grander adjective anyway, considering Sin City expects to attract more than twice as many visitors than the game will bring to host city Miami.

An estimated 287,000 out-of-town visitors are expected this weekend in Las Vegas, up 3.2 percent from Super Bowl weekend last year. Hotel occupancy is expected to be 95 percent, up 2.1 percent from last year.

In contrast, the Super Bowl is expected to attract about 125,000 visitors to Miami and South Florida.

"Las Vegas is bigger than the game," said Erika Pope, spokeswoman for the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority. "That seems to be a sentiment shared by our visitors from around the country."

Excluding gambling losses, Las Vegas visitors will leave behind about $109 million, a jump of 9.5 percent from the nongaming economic impact of Super Bowl weekend 2006.

The game between Indianapolis and underdog Chicago is expected to generate about $95 million in wagers at Nevada sports books.

Besides appealing to people who like to combine watching football with gambling, Super Bowl weekend puts the tense relationship between America's most recognized tourist destination and its most popular sport in the spotlight.

In 2004 the NFL sent a letter to the American Gaming Association, a gambling industry trade group, to remind casinos that setting up special big-screen TVs and charging admission for Super Bowl parties infringed on the league's exclusive ownership of the game. The NFL also long has banned ads for Las Vegas from the Super Bowl telecast.

The league doesn't like the association with a city known for gambling and sports betting, but the restrictions haven't stopped Las Vegas from capitalizing on the event.

Alan Feldman, spokesman for MGM Mirage, said the game will be televised in sports books at the company's 10 Las Vegas casinos.

But MGM Mirage casinos won't be setting up special big-screen TVs or hosting parties under the Super Bowl name.

The rules limit casinos and sports books to showing the game on screens normally available to customers throughout the year.

Binion's downtown will feature big-screen televisions and a Super Buffet, but no mention of the Super Bowl by name. The casino calls the event a Big Game Party.

Fortunately for casino customers, the demise of Super Bowl viewing parties coincides with the rise of more grandiose sports books featuring lavish accoutrements and giant TV screens year-round.

Red Rock Resort, for example, features three 18-by-32-foot screens as the centerpiece of its sports book, said Lori Nelson, spokeswoman for Station Casinos, which owns Red Rock Resort and 15 other Nevada casinos.

In addition to the movie-size screens, there are 212 conventional televisions in the Red rock sports book and six more in the men's restroom.

Although this will be the first Super Bowl weekend at Red Rock, which opened in April, Station has operated casinos for three decades and understands the significance of the event.

Red Rock will host private parties for about 1,000 invited guests and offer 140 proposition bets on everything from the longest field goal to the number of penalties. The sports book will open at 6 a.m. Sunday to start taking action on the game. "The big game is one of the most important days to our race and sports books," Nelson said.