Photo by Station Casinos Red Rock’s Adventure Spa biking trip

Las Vegas has been a magnet for the get-rich-quick crowd ever since Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel waved a magical cigar over a dusty Mormon outpost in 1946 and created the Flamingo Hotel.

In the decades since, the forces that drove development of Las Vegas – some of which were on the up-and-up – created an opulent living environment that rivaled other luxurious projects. Much of it revolved around certain vices: drinking, gambling and endless seafood buffets.

That market will always exist. But now casino outfits are reaching out to new markets – specifically local Las Vegans, extreme high rollers and non-gamblers – by building world-class spas and penthouse suites, swanky clubs and outdoor adventure activities away from the ka-ching of the casino floor.

Getting There

By car, the 280-mile trip to Sin City is a masochistic slog. Take US 60 out of the West Valley toward Wickenburg and hop on US Highway 93 for the duration of the trip, following the signs to Las Vegas. The four-hour drive crosses a wide-open swath of Joshua tree-studded Mohave Desert, the city of Kingman and Fort Mojave Indian Reservation before reaching Needles, Nevada.

With the price of petrol these days, you can also hop on a plane and get there in an hour. Southwest Airlines, for example, regularly offers roundtrip weekend fares for as little as $100, excluding taxes and fees, as long as the tickets are purchased 21 days in advance. Its flights touch down every hour at McCarran International Airport.

Lodging

There are more than 250 hotels in Las Vegas, ranging from budget to bling and everything in between. Then there are themed resort/casinos. Want to see a mock pirate ship? Eat at a faux French café? Worship “Ra” in a nightclub under a pyramid dome?

There are literally dozens of options, from the gaudy to the austere. But since this humble column focuses on the adventurous non-gambler, we’re going off the Strip to Red Rock Casino and Green Valley Ranch.

The two sister properties are owned and operated by Station Casinos, a family-run outfit founded in 1976 by Frank Fertitta Jr., a dealer at the Tropicana.

He built Palace Station, a 500-square-foot slot casino/snackbar for casino workers. Thirty years later, Station Casinos is one of the largest, most-established gambling companies in Las Vegas thanks to Fertitta’s sons, Frank and Lorenzo. Their empire is fed in part by the no-holds-barred Ultimate Fighting Championship, which they bought out from extinction and built into an entertainment phenomenon.

But there’s nothing rough about the $1 billion Red Rock Casino, which opened in April 2006. The latest offering in Station Casinos’ lineup, it sits 20 minutes from McCarran Airport and 10 miles off the Strip – close enough for gambling’s sake, yet far enough to feel comfortably isolated.

There’s gambling, to be sure. But the real attraction here is away from the casino floor. The building is awash in reds and blacks with onyx and marble. The standard room features a 42-inch plasma TV, an iPod-fed Bose stereo, a martini bar and a 15-inch LCD TV in the bathroom. Even the design is non-gambler friendly, thanks to a separate entrance away from the casino for resort visitors only.

Photo by Station Casinos Spa at Green Valley Ranch	Photo by Station Casinos The pool at Green Valley Ranch