VEGAS MYTHS BUSTED: The Strip Uses Most of Las Vegas’ Water

• Despite appearances, Las Vegas Strip casinos don’t use as much water as people believe they do
• Most of the water used on the Strip is recycled and reused
• The owners of the major Strip properties, however, are among the city’s most prolific water wasters 

Casino resorts, it probably won’t surprise you, constitute 40 of the top 50 commercial water users in the Las Vegas Valley Water District (LVVWD). The top five users (The Venetian at 515 million gallons, Mandalay Bay at 507 million, Caesars Palace at 480 million, MGM Grand at 382 million, and Bellagio at 364 million) pumped 2.2 billion gallons (80% of the region’s commercial water use) in 2023, the last year that the Southern Nevada Water Authority (SNWA) released its list.

On the surface, this reinforces the impression many tourists get from observing the fountains at the Bellagio — that Las Vegas doesn’t respect its desert environment and had no business being built here in the first place.

But that 2.2 billion gallons represented only 6.3% of the region’s total water use.

And that figure is misleading anyway because 70%-80% of that water (1.54-1.76 billion gallons) got sent right back to Lake Mead to be filtered and treated. And that’s because Strip resorts are also the region’s top water recyclers.

While it’s true that the other 20%-30% of the Lake Mead water piped into resorts in 2023 evaporated from its golf courses, swimming pools, lagoons, cooling towers, and artificial canals — hello, Venetian again! — the return rate for the resorts’ indoor water use approached 100%.

You could literally go to every hotel room on the Strip, turn on every faucet, flush every toilet, and that’s not going to deplete from the amount of water that we withdraw from the Colorado,” SNWA spokesperson Corey Enus told Casino.org.

In addition, golf courses — which account for 6%-7% of annual commercial water consumption — don’t use Lake Mead drinking water. They make due with effluent or “brown” water, which is only partially treated by the county wastewater plant. This at least saves some of the energy it takes to fully recycle water.

Well-Played

As for the Bellagio fountains, they must draw about 12 million new gallons of water a year to replenish the amount lost to evaporation, leaky pipes, and confused and thirsty rare waterfowl.

While that’s not exactly green, all of that water comes from a private well, not the Colorado.

Steve Wynn acquired the rights to the well, which used to irrigate the Dunes’ golf course, when he purchased the Bellagio’s predecessor in 1992.

Colorado River water wasn’t even piped into the Strip until 1971. So every hotel before then relied on private wells, many of which still exist. (Currently, 11 resorts pump well water to offset their Lake Mead draw.)

Despite current surface appearances to the contrary, Las Vegas wasn’t built on barren desert terrain. Due to consistent runoff from the mountains enveloping it, the land was originally an oasis inside that desert.

Lake Mead’s Real Drains

While Strip casinos aren’t as much of a drain on Las Vegas’ Colorado River allotment as most people think, some of their owners are.

The LVVWD’s 2023 list of Top Las Vegas Residential Water Users (again, the last one it released) included Miriam Adelson, the majority shareholder in Las Vegas Sands, the world’s largest casino operator (9.8 million gallons); Red Rock Resorts director Lorenzo Fertitta (6.5 million); the Fertitta family (4.9 million); and Treasure Island and Circus Circus owner Phil Ruffin (3.3 million).

Nearly half of their 24.5 million gallons got slurped up by immense grass lawns and other landscape vegetation, from which no recycling is possible.

Meanwhile, the average Las Vegas household of 3-4 people uses 120K gallons of water per year, about 82 times less than Adelson.

We’re confident that the world’s eighth-richest person, who is worth an estimated $30 billion, dialed her residential water use way down to avoid ever having to pay such a hefty fine again.

Look for “Vegas Myths Busted” every Monday at Casino.org. Visit VegasMythsBusted.com to read previously busted Vegas myths. Got a suggestion for a Vegas myth that needs busting? Email corey@casino.org.