Nevada Facts

There is one slot machine in Las Vegas for every eight inhabitants.

After Hal Goldblatt was struck by a car in a crosswalk and suffered a traumatic brain injury, his family took out loans to pay for his care while Progressive Insurance stalled their claim for months - because the request arrived on a plain form letter instead of attorney letterhead. A Clark County jury awarded $101 million: $1 million compensatory, $100 million punitive. Progressive had rejected a $1.9 million settlement offer without making a single counteroffer.

Betty Willis designed the "Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas" sign in 1959 and never copyrighted it. She called it her gift to the city, leaving the design free for anyone to use. That is why it appears legally on T-shirts, postcards, and souvenirs around the world with no royalties owed. She once said: "I should make a buck out of it. Everybody else is."

Fly Geyser looks like something from another planet, its mounds streaked bright red and green in the Nevada desert. Nobody designed it. In 1964, engineers drilling a geothermal test well left it uncapped, and scalding mineral water has erupted nonstop ever since. The rainbow colors come from algae that thrive in the hot mineral runoff, and the mound is still growing today.