Not really.
Reno, of course, was Nevada's original biggest little city.
Starting in 1906, in an age when divorce of any kind was barely legal, Nevada's straightforward and fairly expedient (a six-month waiting period) marriage-dissolution process put the Silver State in the spotlight as a loose and libertine outpost on the western frontier. For the next 25 years, Reno, in particular, led the land as the reigning Sin City.
In 1931, when gambling was legalized in Nevada, Reno was the first choice for casino operators. It was on one of the main routes across the country, both by rail (Union Pacific) and road (US 40, the Victory Highway; and US 50, the Lincoln Highway). It was close to the state capital, Carson City. And it was Nevada's banking and financial center. Indeed, by 1933 or so, Harold’s Club on Virginia Street in downtown Reno was the world’s reigning casino, the Caesars Palace of its time, and it introduced numerous innovations that remain standard operating procedure in casinos around the globe to this day. In addition, Harrah's, the largest casino company in the world today, got started in Reno around that time.
Las Vegas, meanwhile, was just a dusty whistlestop on a minor road from Los Angeles to nowhere.
On the other hand, Reno was a tough town to break into. It was well-controlled by big banking, mining, ranching, and political interests. It also had its own home-grown gangsters. Also, because of its decades-long national notoriety as a divorce colony, it was ambivalent about retaining its infamy. And it occupied a small valley between the vastness of the northern Great Basin Desert and the mighty Sierra Nevada, with often-rough winters that limited accessibility for up to six months a year.
For 15 years, from the early '30s to the late '40s, Reno and Las Vegas ran neck and neck in terms of casino development. Las Vegas had the edge, certainly, thanks to the size of its valley, the completion of Hoover Dam, the wide-open business opportunities, and the salubrious winter climate. But both focused primarily on the developments of their downtowns, with some expansion out to the respective counties.
All that changed in 1947. The Las Vegas Strip was growing by leaps and bounds. The El Rancho Vegas and Last Frontier were the most popular resorts in the state. The Flamingo had just opened. The Thunderbird was nearing completion. The Desert Inn was breaking ground. The Sahara and Sands were on the drawing boards.
Northern Nevadans, on the other hand, watched what was happening to their sister city down south and made a conscious decision to let Las Vegas become Las Vegas and to keep Reno as Reno. That year, the Reno City Council passed "redline" legislation that restricted the proliferation of casinos beyond the downtown core. Thus, Reno actively limited the expansion of gambling, while Las Vegas was embracing it. The redline remained in place for a full 32 years; it wasn't removed till 1979. (Reno's big casino boom happened all at once at that time, with seven major casinos and three minor ones opening by 1981. The biggest casino to be built from scratch in Reno between 1982 and 2006 has been the 1,700-room Silver Legacy downtown.)
In addition, Reno’s economy is more diversified than Las Vegas’s. Again, limiting its dependence on casinos has broadened Reno’s economic vistas. Nevada’s major mining-company headquarters are in Reno. Warehousing has long been a mainstay of the area’s employment base. Light industry is another; IGT, with the largest two-story building in the state, measured in acres rather than square feet, is a major employer. Office parks attract big business; Microsoft’s legal and licensing divisions are domiciled in Reno. Tourism interests tout the enormous year-round recreational opportunities centered on Reno-Tahoe as much as, if not more than, the casinos. And Reno’s housing boom has kept pace with Las Vegas’. Though it’s necessarily on a smaller scale, housing construction has filled the Truckee Meadows over the past ten years and condomania has invaded downtown.
Reno might see a little casino-expansion action in the coming years. The Reno Hilton was recently taken over by the Grand Sierra Resort, whose big plans for an indoor water park and condo development could come to fruition. Herbst Gaming recently bought into the area, purchasing several casinos. Atlantis and the Peppermill have a sort of Coke-Pepsi rivalry going on and each is continually expanding (the Peppermill is a bit ahead in the race at the moment). And Station Casinos has set its sights on Reno in a big way. Although Aliante Station in North Las Vegas is Station’s next project, a $500 million casino is being planned for a major intersection in south Reno and another casino is envisioned for land the company owns across from the Reno-Sparks Convention Center (at which point it would turn into a three-way race with Atlantis and the Peppermill).
So, although it’s true that Las Vegas gets the casinos, Reno is simply pursuing a different destiny. Reno’s boom has been proportionately as strong, though a little less loud.
