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The Las Vegas of the Plains

Polyphemus

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In broad terms, Las Vegas serves the West Coast and Atlantic City serves the East Coast. What are some possible candidates for a similar resort town for the Midwest and Upper South? With all the trappings of those two cities: legalized gambling, glamorous high-rise hotels, major entertainment events like title fights and A-list concerts, behind the scenes mob involvement and corruption, and so on. Also, what POD could lead to this?
 
I feel like any Las Vegas equivalent has to be completely dominated by gambling et al; if the vice can't push everything else out, everything else will push the vice out or at least into a smaller-scale red light district, out of moral panic and concerns over organized crime.

The Midwestern center of population is around the Great Lakes, so it has to be in driving distance of there, but I don't know how close it can realistically be; my initial thought is that an alt-Oak Ridge built near or in Paducah to take advantage of the Kentucky Dam could work quite well (likely to be relatively depopulated after the war, lots of nearby young servicemen/technicians to provide an initial seed market, copious amounts of cheap power and water like Vegas OTL, and experienced bookies etc. from the Kentucky Derby) - on the other hand, Kentucky gambling laws are strict enough that it might be worth moving it over the river to Metropolis, IL, which hosts a major casino IOTL though only since 1994.
 
I feel like any Las Vegas equivalent has to be completely dominated by gambling et al; if the vice can't push everything else out, everything else will push the vice out or at least into a smaller-scale red light district, out of moral panic and concerns over organized crime.

The Midwestern center of population is around the Great Lakes, so it has to be in driving distance of there, but I don't know how close it can realistically be

I agree it has to be a smaller town at first.. Maybe Galena, IL? Already established as a resort town for Chicago, Milwaukee, and Detroit. Maybe, like Atlantic City, it falls on hard times and reinvents itself by legalizing gambling.
 
I want to say Memphis. Maybe some kind of New South economic revival program?
Memphis would be a good candidate, it had a rapidly booming population and was rare in the South for being a center of white-ethnic immigration. But you would need either an earlier discovery of the cause of yellow fever or someone willing to overhaul the disgusting state of sanitation in Memphis that continued well into the early 20th century. The yellow fever epidemic in the 1870s devastated the city, bankrupted it, and drove out both the immigrants as well as the wealthiest residents necessary to build resorts and casinos. Memphis' population would be replaced mostly by poorer white and black sharecroppers from the surrounding rural areas. Without the yellow fever epidemic, Memphis would likely rival Atlanta as the largest city in the South and would have the right demographics for a gambling haven.
 
Without the yellow fever epidemic, Memphis would likely rival Atlanta as the largest city in the South and would have the right demographics for a gambling haven.

I love this divergence, but there's the (small) issue in that if Memphis becomes an Atlanta-style megalopolis with the economy to match, it arguably wouldn't need gambling.
 
I love this divergence, but there's the (small) issue in that if Memphis becomes an Atlanta-style megalopolis with the economy to match, it arguably wouldn't need gambling.
This is true, maybe with greater development along that area of the Mississippi you would see a city like Hot Springs or Pine Bluff spring off and become the new gambling hub. And there could be a Los Angles-Las Vegas type relationship going on.
 
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