Las Vegas, U.S.A.

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With its ecologically pious displays of white tigers and dolphins -- and no topless show girls -- the almost tasteful Mirage has profoundly enlarged and updated the notion of Vegas amusement since it opened in 1989. The general Las Vegas marketing spin today is that the city is fun for the whole family. It seems to be an effective p.r. line, but it's an idea that the owners of the new Luxor and MGM Grand may have taken too much to heart.

Inside the Luxor is a fake river and barges, plus several huge "participatory adventure" areas, an ersatz archaeological ride, as well as a two-story Sega virtual-reality video-game arcade. The joint has acres of casino space -- but the slots and blackjack tables are, astoundingly, quite separate from and mostly concealed by the Disneyesque fun and games. The bells and whistles are more prominent and accessible than the casino itself, and are not merely a cute, quick way to divert people as they proceed into the fleecing pen. The MGM Grand has gone further: it spent hundreds of millions of | dollars extra to build an adjacent but entirely separate amusement park, cramming seven rides (three involving fake rivers) and eight "themed areas" onto 33 acres, less than a 10th the size of Disney World.

The smart operators, such as Wynn, understand the proper Vegas meaning of family fun: people who won't take vacations without their children now have places to stick the kids while Mom and Dad pursue the essentially unwholesome act of squandering the family savings on cards and dice. "It's one thing for the place to be user-friendly to the whole family because the family travels together," Wynn says. "It's quite a different thing to sit down and dedicate creative design energy to build for children. I'm not, ain't gonna, not interested. I'm after Mom and Dad." Wynn's dolphins are just a '90s form of free Scotch and sodas, a cheap, subtler means of inducing people to leave their room and lose money.

But even if Vegas is not squeaky clean, even if its raison d'etre remains something other than provoking a childlike sense of wonder, the place is no longer considered racy or naughty by most people. It seems incredible today that a book in the '60s about the city was called Las Vegas, City of Sin? The change in perception is mainly because Americans' collective tolerance for vulgarity has gone way, way up. Just a decade ago, "hell" and "damn" were the most offensive words permitted on broadcast TV; today the colloquialisms "butt" and "sucks" are in daily currency on all major networks. Characters on Fox sitcoms and MTV cartoon shows snicker about their erections, and the stars of NYPD Blue can call each other "asshole." Look at Montel Williams and Geraldo. Listen to Howard Stern.