Disneyland is more similar to the Las Vegas of today than the Mob-controlled Sin City visited by Ian Fleming half a century ago.

“A motorist coming down the highway on the outskirts of the Strip saw something pink sticking out of the sand among the cactus and tumbleweed,” wrote Fleming, recalling a local horror story of the time.

“He stopped to have a closer look. A naked arm was sticking out of the ground and the hand was clenched on three aces. When the police came and dug, they found the man who belonged to the arm.”

Las Vegas - Spanish for “the Meadows”- was established in 1905 as a water stop on the railroad between San Pedro and Salt Lake City, thanks to the natural spring located in what is now the downtown area.

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BACKGROUND

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Like most remote railroad towns, Vegas became known for its black economy, in particular gambling. As the city kept growing, thanks to the construction of the Hoover Dam and Nellis Air Force Base, so too did the profits of the casino owners - most of them funded by the mobsters Bugsy Siegel and Meyer Lansky.

By the time Fleming arrived, however, the casinos had started to move from the city centre to Highway 91, largely because Highway 91 was outside city limits and therefore exempt from taxes.

Thus the infamous Strip was born.Fleming spent most of his time on the Strip at the Tropicana hotel-casino, then new but which is still there, although in larger and less glamorous form.

The Bond creator also ventured downtown, where he won his lunch at the Golden Nugget and observed “crew-cut desperadoes with western hats and incipient stomachs... tugging away at the machines, their sharp, greedy eyes watching the whirring plums and cherries as if they hated them”. Those people are still there, as is the Golden Nugget.

The official end of Mob power came in 1988, when the Las Vegas gaming board blacklisted Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal (so-called because he pleaded the Fifth Amendment 37 times during a court hearing, refusing even to say if he was left-handed), driving him out of town.

For years Lefty had run the Stardust Hotel. He had also run the Hacienda, which used to fly tourists in from Los Angeles on a private airline with topless flight attendants. Lefty, who inspired the character Sam “Ace” Rothstein played by Robert De Niro in the 1995 Martin Scorsese film Casino, is now said to be enjoying retirement in Miami.

Fleming was a fan of Lefty's Stardust. He recommended the hotel's “expensive” Polynesian-themed restaurant, Aku Aku, which closed its doors in 1980.

The casino itself was imploded at a grand fireworks ceremony last year, to make way for a £2 billion development called Echelon Place. Indeed, most of the places mentioned by Fleming have recently been demolished in anticipation of the city's latest growth spurt, which includes the £4 billion-plus CityCenter development, the biggest real estate project in American history.

Anyone trying to find Fleming's beloved Thunderbird Lounge, meanwhile, would end up on the construction site for the £1.4 billion Fontainebleau Las Vegas. However, an homage to the Thunderbird can be found at the pleasingly low-rent Aruba Hotel downtown, next to the historic John S.Park neighbourhood, where the kitschy mid-century mansions of the city's former Mob bosses have been immaculately maintained.

LAS VEGAS

Things to do

Given Ian Fleming's enthusiastic recommendation of a revue at the New Frontier hotel starring “scores of nude Nipponese”, it's likely he would ignore the Cirque du Soleil shows around town and head somewhere racier.

Alas, the New Frontier was demolished last year to make way for the £3 billion Plaza Las Vegas. Which leaves Sapphire (001 702 796 6000), the largest strip club in the world, with 71,000 sq ft of pole-space and 6,000 dancers.

Restaurants

Fleming wrote: “Recommended anywhere in Las Vegas are steaks, provided you will be specific to your waiter or chef, like “charred both sides” or “just rare”. Steak is still king in Sin City. An offbeat option is Tony Roma's (001 702 733 9914) on East Sahara Avenue.

Locals swear you can still make out the scorch marks in the car park where Frank “Lefty” Rosenthal escaped a car bomb attack in 1982. Order a cocktail on the outdoor terrace of Mix at THEhotel at Mandalay Bay (001 702 632 9500). The view at night from 400ft above the Strip - which has come along from Fleming's "twinkling golden river in the black vastness of the Mojave Desert" - is as thrilling as cities get. There' s a restaurant, too.

Hotels

Fleming declared the Desert Inn to be “by far the nicest hotel on the Strip”. The place was demolished in 2001 to make way for one of the nicest hotels in the world, the £1.3 billion Wynn Las Vegas (001 702 770 7000), named after its billionaire owner, Steve Wynn.

Fleming's $25 slot machine jackpot wouldn't impress these days: one of the Wynn's slot machines has a $10 million prize. If you get lucky, you can make your way directly to the Ferrari dealership in the hotel lobby. If you go bust, you'll find a Gideons Bible in your £250-plus room. Visitors with a “shallow pocket” were instructed by Fleming to head downtown. This remains sound advice.

Try the Golden Nugget (001 702 385 7111), where Flemming won his lunch. It was recently refurbished as part of what some claim is a downtown renaissance.

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