7 things you should know about Las Vegas

1. “What happens here, stays here.”

It was 10 years ago this month that the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority and R&R Partners created what has become one of the most recognized taglines in marketing history.

The phrase and its counterpart, “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas,” has been said countless times on television, in movies and among groups of friends ready for a wild weekend.

2. Tourism is huge.

Obviously. But here are some numbers:

• 39.7 million people visited Las Vegas in 2012. Two million people live in the metro area.
• Clark County’s gaming revenue for 2012 was $9.4 billion.
• The Las Vegas Strip’s gaming revenue for 2012 was $6.2 billion.
• 21,615 conventions were held here in 2012.

3. Why Caesars is missing the apostrophe.

It’s because every guest is a Caesar or a Cleopatra.

“This theme made it easy to escape the boring mores of mainstream America, to loosen up and bet a hundred on a hardway eight,” the Review-Journal reported in 1999.

4. Las Vegas eats a lot of shrimp.

More than 60,000 pounds a day, which is higher than the rest of the country combined, according to the Retail Association of Nevada.

5. UNLV’s original mascot was a Confederate wolf named Beauregard.

Beau was a cartoon wolf dressed in a gray military field jacket and a Confederate cap. He was chosen to make a jab at the Wolf Pack mascot of the University of Nevada, Reno — which UNLV thought was a decidedly Northern wolf.

A Rebel soldier replaced Beau in the 1970s, when a group of black athletes “voiced its displeasure with having a mascot that had a connection with the wrong side of the Civil War,” according to UNLV. The soldier eventually became the current mascot, Hey Reb.

6. 17 of the 20 biggest U.S. hotels are in Las Vegas.

And nine of the top 10. The biggest hotel in the country? MGM Grand. Here’s the full list.

7. A lot of people get married here, but the number is falling.

There were 70,370 wedding license applications in Clark County in 2012, a 4.3-percent drop from 2011, which itself saw lower numbers than in 2010.

“I think it’s a social trend,” County Clerk Diana Alba told the Review-Journal in August. “The world is changing. Marriage comes in and out of fashion.”

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Contact Stephanie Grimes at sgrimes@reviewjournal.com and follow her on Twitter @steph_grimes.