With the recent Question of the Day discussing any possible timeframe for redevelopment of the far north Strip up to the Stratosphere, I started wondering what development in Vegas would be like if Native American gaming had not been allowed to grow so fast over the last 20-30 years. (I'm not making any judgement on whether they should have gaming, but just what would have occurred had that not happened.) In a United States where gaming was legal only in Las Vegas and Atlantic City, how much of the entire Strip would be developed? How many of the older resorts (Harrah's, the Flamingo) would have been torn down and rebuilt in a grand manner? Would the Strip have been expanded in an east-west direction along Flamingo Road because of all the demand for new resorts and a desire to be closer to the center Strip? Would a second major airport for Las Vegas have been built? Would the Monorail have been extended all the way to the airport and also all the way up to Downtown? How large of a population would Vegas have now? Would the impact of the Great Recession have been reduced, as those who like to gamble would still have found their way to Vegas? It's kind of fun to imagine what might have been?

In the wake of the complete power outage at Paris-Las Vegas, which blacked out at 9:45 a.m., Thursday November 3, we received a flurry of reader questions about the implications. Rather than reproduce each one, we’ve reduced them to the following salient points. What happens when a slot machine goes down? How do you retrieve your slot and table winnings? And what happens to all that refrigerated food that casinos have to keep on-property?

As of 01/01/2017 marijuana will be legal. My question is will be legal to smoke weed in a hotel-casino if you request a smoking room?

Part Two of "How MGM Wound up Owning the West Side of the Las Vegas Strip."

How did MGM come to acquire Steve Wynn's Bellagio, Mirage, Treasure Island and Monte Carlo hotel-casinos? Did he willfully sell these to MGM? Could you please related the full story on how this came to be?

What is the status of the water levels of Hoover Dam and then Lake Mead? My visit last December, things were looking very dismal for both.

Considering the apparent problems SLS continues to have establishing itself in the market, can we speculate that maybe tearing down the Stardust was a mistake? Outside of a smaller buffet size, what was really wrong with the old place? (Wayne Newton's act doesn't count.) Was it falling apart or just plain old? We never stayed there but did gamble there, a little.

With more and more people using Uber and Lyft, could you please tell us where the pickup and dropoff locations are for each of the casinos on the Strip, as well as Fremont Street and Container Park? We use these services a lot and often the stops are kind of hidden.

Now with marijuana legal in Nevada, will casinos be able to give it away like alcohol when you are playing?

I just don't get the move of Olympic Garden to an off-Strip location, especially after so many years on the Strip. Can you please explain and maybe make a guess on what will happen to the old building?