With more than 80 years of legalized wide-open casino gambling under its belt now, casinos have had plenty of opportunity to take root in just about every nook and cranny in the Nevada, so we'll start with the one town in Nevada where gambling is expressly prohibited: Boulder City. Boulder started out as a government model city, which the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation controlled down to the minutest detail. The city manager answered directly to the Commissioner of Reclamation, and his authority was nearly totalitarian. Gambling and alcohol were prohibited. It wasn't until 1960 that an act of Congress established Boulder City as an independent municipality. Drinking was permitted at that time, but gambling is still proscribed within the city limits.
A number of Nevada towns -- the real boondocks settlements like Owyhee, Tuscarora, McGill, Unionville, Schurz, and Gabbs -- have no gambling at all, but that's only because they're too small. Denio is without any gambling, though Denio Junction a few miles away has a truck stop with machines. Places like Ash Springs, Caliente, Panaca, and Pioche (on US 93), Austin and Eureka (on US 50), Cal-Nev-Ari, Goldfield, Luning, Mina, and Paradise Valley (US 95), Humboldt, Mill City, and Carlin (I-80), Mountain City (NV 226), Rachel (NV 375), and Baker (US 6) all have at least one bar with some bartop video poker and slot machines, though no bona fide casino.
The rest of the towns in Nevada have one or more casinos with upright gambling machines, though they might not have table games. A good example is Virginia City, which has a number of big slot joints, but not a blackjack table or roulette wheel in sight. Battle Mountain has a couple of small casinos downtown, where the table games come and go.
The border towns, no matter how small, all have full-service casinos. Even little McDermitt, way up at the top of US 95 on the Oregon border, has the surprisingly large Say When Casino. Heading clockwise around the edges of Nevada are Jackpot, West Wendover, Mesquite, Laughlin, Pahrump, Primm, Topaz Lake, Stateline, Crystal Bay, and Verdi, all with at least one major casino. It's said that you can make out the rough outline of Nevada from space, thanks to the lights twinkling from border towns.
Along with the border towns, in Clark County are the casino towns of Las Vegas, North Las Vegas, Jean, Searchlight, and Indian Springs. Heading generally north you'll run into Amargosa Valley, Tonopah, Hawthorne, Yerington, Silver Springs, and Fallon. In western Nevada are Reno, Sparks, Carson City, Incline Village, Minden, Gardnerville, and Dayton. Along Interstate 80 are Fernley, Lovelock, Winnemucca, Elko, and Wells.
