You'll feel like a high roller -- without the adrenaline-pumping swings of fate predicated on the turn of a card or the roll of the dice.
Hotel guests have priority, of course, but most pool areas are more than happy to rent cabanas to non-guests willing to pay the freight.
At many properties, the charge to rent a cabana is eliminated if you buy enough food and beverages. And since most cabanas can accommodate 10, 12, or more people, if you can get a bunch of friends together, you'll simply have to pay for all the food and booze you consume, which you would anyway over the course of a debauched day in Vegas.
Many cabanas have their own food and beverage server (some in bikinis, like at Hooters), who are happy to provide (overpriced) bottle service. Some cabanas are stocked with water and snacks for the rental price. They all have either a fan or misters. Many have TVs, so you can have the game on in the background. And the fanciest cabanas have sundecks, daybeds (in addition to the couches and plush lounge chairs), even private pools.
Among the pool areas with less expensive cabanas: Luxor, New York-New York, Treasure Island, Downtown Grand, and Stratosphere, starting at $150-$200 weekdays.
Expensive cabanas are at the hottest dayclubs, starting at $500 on weekdays and topping out at $2,500 weekends.
Then there are the bungalows. Encore Beach Club, for example, has eight of them, with a 20-body capacity, private terraces and balconies, major sound systems, private pools, showers, and even air-conditioning -- starting at around $15,000.
The Palms and Cosmopolitan have what they call bungalows, which are more like hotel rooms right off the pool area.