VEGAS MYTHS RE-BUSTED: Sin City Has the Most Churches Per Capita

EDITOR’S NOTE: “Vegas Myths Busted” publishes every Monday, with a incentive Flashback Fri edition. Today’s ledger entry in our on-going serial publication originally ran on May 22, 2023.

The Wikipedia pageboy for Las Vegas used to take the urban center had the most houses of adoration per capita of any US location. In 2010, that title was removed after a Wikipedia contributor noted: “The churches comprise mostly of drive-thru hymeneals chapels, non existent congregations, and is non an indicant of piousness to direct contrast the city’s reputation.”

Even with the wedding party chapels, though, the math never added up. There are well-nigh 50 wedding party chapels inwards the greater Las Vegas region, according to the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, on teetotum of 600 churches, temples, mosques, and synagogues, representing more than 63 faiths.

In 2022, the universe of the Las Vegas metropolitan country was 2.8 million. That makes 1 domiciliate of adoration — or nuptials chapel, let’s hold them inward to establish a power point — for every 4,666 residents.

According to a 2015 contemplate conducted past the tangible land website propertyshark.com, the US metropolis with the most churches was Indianapolis, with 298 residents per church. Seattle was next with 482, and then Jacksonville, Fla., with 563, Washington, DC, with 738, and Memphis with 804.

Las Vegas didn’t fifty-fifty show up upwardly until No. 20, with 2,841 residents per church at the time, which agency it’s gotten fifty-fifty less churchy since.

Myth Origins

This myth seems to have gotten started past the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce, which, to combat the Sin City nickname, stated inward its 1996 relocation guide: “Las Vegas has more churches per capita than to the highest degree major cities.”

It didn’t state “the to the highest degree churches,” nor did it bother substantiating its claim. Subsequent editions dropped the claim.

It’s difficult to get a completely precise weigh of religious institutions anywhere. Tax-exempt position substance the IRS keeps no more tabs on houses of worship, many of which either fulfill in storefronts and houses, are not registered as nonprofits, or don’t feature anyone on payroll.

But Las Vegas is definitely not the bearer of this title. It is out-pioused past every city inwards America with fewer than 4,666 residents and to a greater extent than ace church.

Bonus Vegas Church Myth

In Vegas, gambling casino chips sometimes catch left wing in church building assembling plates. So, a Catholic monastic makes the rounds every Mon to pull in the chips. He cashes them inward and donates the profits to the neediest ministries.

Umm, no.

This myth came from a punny older joke with the punchline: “He’s called the chipping monk.”

Apparently, though, not everyone remembered the punchline or got the joke, and this story is ease sometimes repeated as fact. In another variation, all Vegas churches direct their chips to a Franciscan monastery, where the knap monk sorts them.

Chips manage once in a while turn over upwards in Las Vegas collection plates, yes. But churches will sorting and put in them until on that point are enough from ane casino to vindicate sending someone at that place for (the other genial of) redemption.

The employees/volunteers tasked with this duty are commonly referred to as potato chip monks. But that’s only a winking consultation to the old joke. Still, it makes for a rarefied pillowcase inward which a Las Vegas myth has, inwards a way, created its have reality.

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