‘What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas’ hashtag is just full of surprises

“What happens here, stays here” is known around the world as Las Vegas’ motto, thanks to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, and now a recent report confirms that the opposite is true, nothing really stays in Las Vegas — especially on Instagram.

According to Casino.org, a site that reviews casinos and provides basic gaming guides, the hashtag #WhatHappensInVegasStaysInVegas can be … well, revealing.

The site used Amazon’s Mechanical Turk service to look at 23,000 Instagram photos that used the tag and said, “all bets are off for privacy and anonymity” when the city’s “catchphrase” is used as a hashtag.

After sifting through countless photos posted by nightlife promoters, the study found that pictures of scantily-clad or bikini-baring revelers dominated the hashtag with 1,869 posts. The next closest photo type were alcohol-related pictures.

After that, it’s casinos and nightclubs, followed by partial or full nudity, stripping, tobacco, illegal activities, Metro, weapons and drugs.

Here are the types of photos that are most shared with the #WhatHappensInVegasStaysInVegas tag:

Instagram followers really “like” weapons, as well.

Although pictures that show a little skin were posted more frequently than any other type of photo, they weren’t the most-favorited photo associated with #WhatHappensInVegasStaysInVegas.

Based on the study, with an average of 174.3 likes per photo, pictures of weapons got more likes from users on Instagram than any other photo. With an average of 67.8 likes on each photo, the second most-liked featured money.

Contact Caitlin Lilly at clilly@reviewjournal.com. Find her on Twitter: @caitielilly_