Las Vegas is a city that seems to have been made to be the backdrop of a movie. It’s got all the glittering lights and neon signs that look fantastic shining down from the big screen. Plus, there is always something going on amongst the millions of people who flock to the centre of sin. No wonder, then, that the city has been the setting for many truly great movie classics. So, here is a quick look at some of the best movies set in the beautiful city of Las Vegas.

Ocean’s Eleven (2001)

This blockbuster featuring George Clooney, Brad Pitt, and Julia Roberts absolutely wowed crowds back in 2001 with its elaborate heists and schemes. Ocean’s Eleven was a big-budget remake of the 1960 movie that starred Frank Sinatra and the rest of the Rat Pack. The story centres on a crew of career criminals, who are teaming up to pull off the heist of all heists against a billionaire casino owner.

The movie features the magnificent Bellagio casino, which opened on the Las Vegas strip on October 15th 1998. It was so loved and caused such a storm on release, that it produced two sequels released in 2004 and 2007, and even had a female led remake in 2018. All are entertaining, but none of them can quite live up to the first movie’s greatness.

Rain Man (1988)

Tom Cruise and Dustin Hoffman teamed up to create pure movie magic in this 1988 smash-hit that impressed both audiences and critics. In fact, Rain Man managed to win four Oscars, including for Best Picture, and Hoffman took home the Oscar for Best Actor in a Leading Role. Cruise plays a character who is a savvy businessman, who feels he is cheated out of his inheritance. A whopping $3 million is left to his unknown autistic brother played beautifully by Hoffman. Cruise’s character soon connects with his brother, and finds out that he is a savant genius with a perfect photographic memory.

This leads the two to Vegas, after they’ve suited up of course, and straight to the blackjack tables. What ensues are some of the most famous casino scenes in movie history, that will have you clamoring to book your next Vegas trip. If you can’t get there at the moment though, Vegas Slots Online have got you covered, and can bring all the casino table games to you. They also have all the best bonuses and free spins in a comprehensive and easy to use list. So, you’ll know you’re getting the most for your money.

The Hangover (2009)

This movie highlights all of the sheer craziness that is on offer in Sin City. The Hangover was released in 2009, and was a non-stop riot of bad behaviour and great laughs. The movie begins with a bunch of friends preparing for a hedonistic stag-party, but before we get to see the events of the night, we’re fast-forwarded to the next morning, where everyone is severely the worse for wear. It then fast-forwards to the next day, and they realise they’ve lost the groom, uh-oh! After that the movie showcases the friends trying to piece together exactly what happened, and retrace their steps, with predictably hilarious results.

One of the best moments amongst the madness includes one of the characters getting punched out by boxer Mike Tyson, after they were deemed to have stolen his tiger from his Vegas penthouse. Just like that scene, the movie was a knock-out hit. The Hangover made stars of Bradley Cooper and Zach Galifianakis, and also went on to have a further two follow up movies released, though neither were as loved as the first.

The new year brings a fresh start for everyone, and what better way to start over than by redecorating or remodeling your home? In Las Vegas, homeowners make it a point to regularly refresh their homes, with a 2019 Harvard survey revealing that there was a significant growth in remodeling projects in the state. But you don’t have to do a complete overhaul to make your place more comfortable and inviting. By making a few changes and adding some new elements to your décor, you can make your home the ideal place for staying in. If you’re planning to redecorate this year, here are some interior design trends to enhance your Vegas home. 

Channel-tufted chairs

Las Vegas is known for its flashy extravagance and indulgent lifestyle, so to add some luxury to your space, try having a channel-tufted chair in your home. This type of chair is not only deliciously soft and comfortable, but it goes well with the Art-Deco style, which is highly popular nowadays. Consider having a tufted armchair with metallic legs in your living room to serve as an accent piece, or replace your old home office chair with a tufted swivel chair. 

Natural materials

The rustic look is still a popular choice among interior designers and homeowners, as natural building and decorating materials are slated to be some of the biggest design trends of 2021. According to Mangum Home Builders, one of the best ways to build a rustic or ranch-style home is to include Texan elements in your Vegas home, such as exposed beams on the ceiling or natural stone in your house’s exterior. For an easy way to incorporate natural elements in your home, try adding a large-scale rattan chandelier in the hallway, a sisal rug in the living room, or rattan furniture in the dining room. 

Colorful artwork

Swap your moody, black-and-white art for something a little more colorful to grace your walls. Consider hanging up some Andy Warhol-inspired pop art in the kitchen, or install a colorful large-scale art piece in the living room. You can also try framing small colorful rugs or retro-inspired prints. Contemporary portraits in soft pastel hues can also make a strong statement, especially if the art work complements your room’s color scheme. 

Refresh your Vegas home with these 2021 interior design trends. Not only will you make your home more inviting, but you’ll also create the ideal space that you and your family will love to spend time in throughout the years. 

The spread of the coronavirus isn’t slowing down, that much is for certain. This disease is just as prevalent now as it was earlier in the year, which is why governments across the globe are once again tightening their lockdown laws.

Unfortunately, if there has been a recent surge of COVID-19 cases in your local area, you could very well find yourself stuck in lockdown for the foreseeable future. If the prospect of spending yet more time in isolation makes you feel anxious and afraid, it’s crucial that you distract yourself from these distressing feelings. If you don’t, you could find yourself battling serious mental health problems such as depression and/or general anxiety disorder (GAD) sooner rather than later.

Are you determined to remain upbeat and positive throughout the next stage of lockdown? If so, be sure to put the following advice into practice. Here are three things you can do to pass the time while you’re stuck at home in self-isolation:

Make use of video chat technology

You might not be able to spend time with your loved ones in person, but that doesn’t mean you can’t see them. If you make use of today’s top video chat tools, you will still be able to interact with your friends and family even if you’re not actually allowed to be together in the flesh.

As is the case with anything that takes place via the Internet, the safety of video chatting is sometimes called into question. If you don’t want your system to be hacked or your personal information to be stolen while you spend time video chatting with your loved ones, it is crucial that you go above and beyond to remain safe. To perform this all-important task, you must:

• Never distribute the links to your meetings on social media
• Take some time to edit the specifications of your chat to ensure that only signed-in users can join
• Lock your communal video chat platform as soon as all planned participants have entered it
• Remain mindful of background noise and remember to position your camera properly (this isn’t essential for your safety — just basic video chat etiquette!)

Reconnect with things that you love

Don’t waste all of this spare time that you have on your hands lounging around in your PJs all day. Take advantage of your free schedule by taking some time to reconnect with the things that you love. You don’t have many (if any) commitments at the moment, so why not indulge in a bit of a well-deserved ‘me time’?

If your great passion in life is hockey, you’re in luck because NHL games are now taking place once again. You might not currently be allowed to cheer on your favorite team in person, but that doesn’t mean that you can’t follow the sport that you love from the comfort of your own home. To keep up to date with all the latest happenings in the world of professional hockey, be sure to check out Odds Shark NHL Scores and Standings Online.

Learn a new skill

If you do, in fact, end up having to stay in lockdown throughout the duration of the winter months, why not consider mastering a new skill? You’ll have plenty of time on your hands and it’ll be too cold for you to potter around in your garden, so what’s the harm in trying something a bit different? Whether you learn to play an instrument or brush up on your knowledge of a foreign language, this is definitely a worthwhile route that you can take in your attempt to pass the time in self-isolation.

We’re all looking for the comfort of the familiar right now. We all want that feeling of settling into a favorite activity, of recreating that feeling of returning to somewhere we know and love, even if we can’t leave the house right now. A huge part of what we love about online gambling is the experience it recreates for us, of stepping onto the casino floor with friends and pitting our wits against the dealers, the odds and that most formidable opponent of all: chance.

There’s a reason why casinos have been around in one form or another for centuries, and even as we move online and away from the red carpeting and blaring noise we find in the old-fashioned buildings, we’re still craving that same experience. As the world has evolved, elements of casinos have changed with it, while others have stayed resolutely the same. Let’s look at how gambling houses have moved with the times over the years.

Way, Way Back

As you’re no doubt aware, gambling has been around for as long as people have. Human beings have always wanted to bet against each other, or on each other for that matter, and games of dice and cards date back to around 2,300 BC. Over the centuries, these games evolved and so did the elements used to play them. Historians have found it hard to pinpoint exactly when the first dice were thrown, for example, but it’s interesting to note that several of the most popular games developed over time as people from different nations travelled and brought their own interpretations of local games home with them.

Poker, for example, has elements of French, Spanish, Italian and British card games but wasn’t played as “poker” until French and American gamblers matched wits in New Orleans after the Louisiana Purchase. The point is, there have been gambling dens and card rooms for centuries, but the first real casino came along much later.

Venice Gives It A Home

The first casino was built in Venice in 1638, called Il Ridotto. This translates as the retreat, or the private room, in this context and the reason for that name was clear: because there far too many ridotti in Venice and the government wanted to crack down and bring them under their control. These ridotti were private gambling dens, generally in the luxurious apartments of the wealthy, and the Great Council of Venice decided that this activity had gone on unchecked for long enough. No more ridotti, they declared, just one, with a “The” at the front so you know it’s the only one you’re supposed to go to.

They built it in a wing of the Palazzo Dandolo to coincide with the annual spring carnival in anticipation of an explosion of games of chance, and it ended up staying open much longer than that. In theory, Il Ridotto was open to all members of the public but the high stakes of the games on offer meant that only the wealthy could play. It was still popular enough to be closed in 1774 during a period of extreme panic about the morality of Venetian citizens. However, the first casino had been born and countries across the world had taken note.

The Wild West To The Las Vegas Strip

If you’ve ever watched a Western, or played a Red Dead Redemption game for that matter, you’ll know that saloons were the home of gambling in the American west. Owners of these watering holes were always on the lookout for ways to convince paying customers to spend their money at their establishment, and card and dice games were high on the list of most popular attractions. However, there was always a push against it from religious groups and activists worried about the nation’s moral fiber, and more and more legislation was introduced to crack down on gambling across the country. By about 1910, gambling was illegal in the United States. Of course, it didn’t just go away, and in 1931 the state of Nevada legalized gambling as a way of kickstarting some much needed revenue, and the start of construction work on the Hoover Dam meant that there were a lot of new arrivals looking for entertainment.

The first casino in Las Vegas was built in 1941, named El Rancho Vegas, but the arrival of organized crime figure Bugsy Siegel really got the show on the road when he built his casino The Flamingo in 1946. Money was flooding in and more and more casinos started popping up on the strip.

The Move Online

As the internet became a tool that everybody could use in the early 1990s, of course it was only a matter of time before gambling went online. When the Free Trade and Processing Act was passed by Antigua and Bermuda in 1994, licenses could be granted to online casinos and the gambling company Microgaming, based in the Isle of Man, licensed the first software for online gambling that same year.

Intercasino, based in Antigua, was the first official online casino when they launched in 1996 and a flood of other companies followed suit, but they’ve consistently had to find ways around gambling laws. The American Department of Justice cracked down hard on online gambling in the US in 2011, locking down three of the leading sites, but around the world the virtual equivalent of the casino has continued to flourish.

If you want to see just how broad the range of top online casinos sites, and how they vary from game to game and country to country, you should check out an online casinos review site. Top Dog Casinos breaks down the best online casino reviews from actual players into easy-to-navigate categories and shows just how many different choices there are.

Mobile Gambling

Gone are the days when you’d have to boot up your chunky PC and listen to the dial-up modem connecting before you could log on to a poker game. Now, advancements in technology mean that you can play in HD online casinos from any mobile device wherever you are. Now, the casino is where you are, whether that’s on a train, in a hotel room, or waiting for the oven to heat up so you can make a start on dinner, and it’s only getting more popular. We still want the same classic casino experience, it’s just the packaging that’s changed.