Yup. Only morons put cities like that in a desert. The fact that there are water fountains in the city just highlight the idiocy.
Las Vegas is second only to Israel in water recycling more than 99% of every drop that hits a drain. Casinos use less than 1% of Nevada’s yearly water allocation from the Colorado River which is only 300,000 acre feet for the whole state vs 7 million for California. Those fountains never use drinking water that’s all reclaimed effluent from sewerage system think about that the next time you are down wind and the most hits you ha. Seriously Vegas is the USA leader in water recycling bar none. That city gets 40 million people per year staying an average of 3 days each and uses less than it’s 300,000 acre feet per year.Nevada banks water every year out of its 300,000 river compact allotment they have for the last ten years banked water. So who are the water wasters Nevada who uses less than it’s allotments the smallest barely a rounding error to California or California growing rice, almonds and alfalfa hay in the desert using five million acre feet on just the Alfalfa hay alone a large amount of that is shipped to Saudi Arabia to feed their cattle. Looking at real data and real amounts it’s California who are the water hogs Nevada got the short end of the stick and ran with it making a money making machine in the desert with relatively tiny amounts of water. Casino’s are less than 1% of 300,000 acre feet and bring in billions per year. California uses 40% of its water for agriculture and that is only 2% of California’s gross State product. Read that again they use 40% of their water supply to produce 2% of GSP and that’s millions of acre feet tens of millions actually. Nevada uses less than 1% of 300,000 to generate 56% of its GSP who is the water waster and who is making sound fiscal returns on their water supply.
https://m.lasvegassun.com/news/2018/may/10/the-strip-might-use-less-water-than-you-think/
https://www.snwa.com/water-resources/current-water-supply/index.html