Dubai World invest $5 billion in hotels that disallow gambling. Now that a gamble.

People look out of the window in room of a 'Panoramic Suite' during the opening of the new hotel

The women's spa area complete with jacuzzi and soft lighting. Rooms at the hotel will go for up to £1,200-a-night

A water feature and a chandelier made of glass baubles in the hotel's meditation area for both men and women

Waiters arrange place settings at the tables at the Silk Road restaurant

The new Vdara Hotel & Spa, the first hotel to open at CityCenter on the Las Vegas strip

The full $8.5bn CityCenter complex on the Las Vegas Strip which includes six hotels

Photographer Sebastian Copeland, actress Rosario Dawson and actor Orlando Bloom arrive at the grand opening of Vdara Hotel & Spa at CityCenter hosted by Vanity Fair

It appears to have everything that makes a proper Las Vegas mega-hotel: gleaming glass and steel, opulent luxury, and eye-watering prices.

But Dubai World’s 57-storey hotel in Las Vegas that it hopes will tempt visitors from around the world and help secure the troubled emirate’s future has one major flaw: all gambling is banned.

The new hotel is Vdara and it opened in 'Sin City' last night with a party, sponsored by Vanity Fair, and attended by Orlando Bloom and Rosario Dawson.

It is described is 'an all-suite boutique hotel with a sophisticated international flair that appeals to guests who love the energy and excitement of Las Vegas, but who choose to experience it in an exclusive non-gaming, non-smoking environment'.
The Vdara is a 57-story, non-gambling and non-smoking condominium hotel connected with other CityCenter features and the plush Bellagio hotel next door.

Its features include a large Nancy Rubins canoe-starburst sculpture outside its front doors, and a boutique spa and salon inside with 11 treatment rooms.

The development, whose architects included Britain's Lord Foster, was planned in easier economic times, and includes another three hotels, one of which is also non-gambling.

There is also a shopping mall, 27 restaurants, private apartments, and a £24million art gallery. It's all expected to be open by the end of the month and employ about 12,000 people.

The hotel, where rooms go for £1,200 a night, is part of a massive new $8.5billion development called CityCenter which includes a retail promenade, 27 restaurants and three hotels, including the Mandarin Oriental.

Bill McBeath, who will manage the new hotel, claimed that Las Vegas has a growing customer base that wants a non-gaming option.

'Vdara is marketed and branded as everything Las Vegas has to offer, and everything it doesn't,' he said.

'All you have to do is walk across to Aria or Bellagio. Then you can come back and escape from being in a casino.'

CityCenter is co-owned by the Las Vegas-based MGM Mirage and DubaiWorld, the investment arm of the Persian Gulf state.

Dubai was forced to ask for repayments on its £35.3billion debt to be put on hold earlier this week.
Most of the 67-acre project on the Las Vegas Strip is being opened in phases this month.

The Crystals retail shopping mall and the 392-room Mandarin Oriental open this week, while the centerpiece Aria Resort & Casino opens Dec. 16, adding 4,004 hotel rooms to the saturated Las Vegas market.

A 400-room boutique hotel has been delayed until at least late next year.

Competitors worry the added rooms could depress rates further in a market where many hotel-casinos have had to slash prices to keep their beds filled.

MGM Mirage CEO Jim Murren said: ‘It's going to be party central around here for a few weeks.’

Billionaire investor Kirk Kerkorian, 92, has longtime ties to Las Vegas and twice built the largest hotels in the city, but said in a statement that CityCenter may be the best project he's been a part of.

‘Of all the wonderful Las Vegas properties with which I've been associated, CityCenter is simply the most amazing,’ said Kerkorian, who owns a 37 percent stake in MGM.

‘I'm extremely excited to see the public's reaction and look forward to seeing how it changes Las Vegas.’

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