Las Vegas at 100: Why it's tech's kind of town

Like the adult entertainment industry, the world of gambling is a test bed for many cutting-edge technologies. And no place leads the world of wagers like the desert city of Las Vegas. Will Sturgeon kicks off a new silicon.com series by taking a look at the city's role, past, present and future.

On 15 May 1905 Los Angeles and Salt Lake City Railroad held a land auction in the middle of the Nevada desert.

Within two days all 110 acres of land had been bought and the town of Las Vegas, Nevada was born. The town's inception was to prove monumental but only facilitated by two events some 26 years later - the legalisation of gambling in Nevada and the building of the Hoover Dam as it is now known - both of which began in 1931.

The all-male workforce building the dam needed to unwind and needed entertainment to make a perilous project more bearable. Drinking, gambling and whoring seemed to fit the bill.

Prohibition in the 1930s also played a part. The idea of an oasis of vice in the desert - far from the prying eyes of the big city-based authorities - appealed to the mob.

Even today Vegas, with its theme parks and family appeal is still inescapably and obviously built on a foundation of vice.

In 1941 the arrival of the US army did little to legitimise activities. In a city of contrasts and contradictions the opening of Nellis Air Force Base - famed for the mysteries of Area 51 at Groom Lake - is perhaps indicative of the city's darkest side.

When even the army come to town to 'bury their bodies in the desert' you know you've done something right - or very wrong, depending on your outlook.

Today Las Vegas is the fastest growing city in the US and an unparalleled entertainment hub.

Its huge resort hotels - it boasts nine of the 10 largest hotels on earth - and strong popular appeal have also made it the convention capital of the world - for no sector more so than technology.

Las Vegas' proximity to the tech heartland in neighbouring California means it has become the destination of choice for the high-tech community when it gets together. It's 40 minutes from Los Angeles and little over an hour from San Francisco, Palo Alto and the rest of the Bay Area.

Comdex - which has been postponed indefinitely - and the Consumer Electronics Show are probably the two highest profile annual meets in recent times. In keeping with the criminal underbelly of Las Vegas, hacker convention DefCon has also found a home here. (Continues after pics...)

"I'm staying where...?" Conference delegates could find themselves in contrasting resorts. Just a couple of blocks apart Excalibur and The Monte Carlo could hardly be more different.

Perhaps surprisingly, it's not an association the casinos are particularly tripping over themselves to maintain. The rooms would certainly be taken anyway. Irrespective of what events are in town, Vegas is suffering a pinch on accommodation these days and seeing a resultant building boom. And, most importantly, conference attendees are not the most reckless with their gambling.

Carol Pride, a techie herself in her role as CIO at Caesars Palace, told silicon.com: "We won't really miss Comdex.

"We used to joke among ourselves that the computer nerds would spend too much time trying to work out their chances of winning at blackjack, while we'd be going 'Just play!'"

There are exceptions. Oracle boss Larry Ellison is reported to be that most coveted of Vegas gamblers, a 'whale' - the super high-stakes $1m-per-night kind of playboy whom the casino host would literally sell his own grandmother to entertain.

And Ellison isn't alone. When Silicon Valley was churning out youthful millionaires at a rate of dozens per day in the boom years you can be sure more than a little of that cash ended up in the high stakes room at the Bellagio or Caesars or downtown at the Horseshoe for those who were living the dream long before they had the means to do it in style. The city caters for every meeting of minds, large and small - from the 100 members of the International Ventriloquists Association checking into the Imperial Palace hotel to the 132,500 members of the National Association of Broadcasters, which last month heard keynote addresses from AMD, HP and Sun execs among others.

The fact the American Association of Addictionology and Compulsive Behavior chooses to meet in the vice capital of the world is an affirmation of the city's manifold contradictions.

But the wealth, relative youth and brash exterior of the high-tech industry mean work-hard, play-hard Las Vegas is a fitting home for its meetings. The fact tech has been something of a high stakes gamble for all involved over the past decade makes it all the more appropriate.

CA World has been at home in Las Vegas for the past four years - bringing around 30,000 high tech staffers to town. It's back there again this year despite attempts to source a new venue elsewhere capable of housing the event.

Bob Millin, VP Global Event Strategy at CA, told silicon.com that putting on an event the scale of CA World takes two years' planning.

"IT conferences require a unique level of network access. Now, all new facilities are planning for that level of support but in the early days of events, Vegas led the way," said Millin.

"The weather and casinos don't hurt either," he added.

In true Las Vegas style, Millin tells of two Spanish CA customers who met and got married at CA World.

"They initially had asked us to help co-ordinate getting a Spanish speaking, Elvis-impersonating, Justice of the Peace," said Millin. "However, they later decided to just run off and get married though we did provide them with the honeymoon suite at the Green Valley Ranch."

Microsoft checked 3,000 people into the Mandalay Bay resort in early May. Cisco Systems will also be bringing 15,000 delegates to town this summer. Love it or hate it if you work in tech and you're in the business of attending conferences, then Vegas, like death, is inevitable. (Continues after pics...)

Classic Vegas: Binions Horseshoe (left); and The Bellagio (right).

Sinatra and the cool cats of Vegas lore would turn in their graves at the sight of so many chino wearing tech execs but the world has moved on.

In part this is buoyed by the fact Las Vegas has a relatively large resident tech workforce maintaining the systems which underpin the modern high-tech casinos. In the case of Caesars for example, Pride heads a team of 400 techies. Eighty of those work full-time on coding the company's own bespoke systems.

It's this latter fact which brought silicon.com out to Las Vegas to find out how the city is becoming a test-bed for every technology you'll ever hear of.

As we've already reported, biometrics and RFID are hot right now, and CRM - more than in any other sector - is also blazing a trail on the sun-baked Strip.

Over the coming weeks silicon.com will be bringing you a number of reports on the technology which makes Sin City tick. The scale may be different, the sector almost certainly so but what happens in Vegas no longer stays in Vegas. The Bright Light City is setting many of the trends which will shape end-user and corporate technology use for years to come.

All photos: Will Sturgeon