The Carbon Footprint of a Vegas Trip vs. Playing Online at Home
A weekend in Las Vegas is a Bay Area ritual: a short flight, a few nights on the Strip, a show and some time at the tables. An evening of online poker or casino games at home, where it is legal, involves nothing more than a laptop or phone. How do their carbon footprints compare? Here are rough, rounded estimates. Real numbers vary with the calculator, the aircraft, the hotel and your habits.
Getting there
Oakland and San Francisco airports are a little over 400 miles from Las Vegas as the crow flies, a flight of roughly 90 minutes.
| Mode (round trip, per person) | Rough CO2 estimate | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Economy flight OAK/SFO to LAS | About 150 to 400 kg | Lower end counts CO2 only; higher end includes non-CO2 warming effects of flying |
| Petrol car, 30 mpg, about 1,100 miles total | About 330 kg per car | Divide by the number of passengers; four people sharing is under 100 kg each |
| Electric car | Much lower | Depends on the electricity mix where you charge |
| Bus | Usually lowest per passenger | Long ride, but efficient when full |
There is no direct passenger train from the Bay Area to Las Vegas today. A high-speed line between Southern California and Las Vegas has been under construction, which may one day offer a lower-carbon route for part of the journey.
Staying there
Big resort hotels use a lot of energy for air conditioning, lighting, kitchens, pools and gaming floors that never close. Published estimates of emissions per hotel room-night vary widely, from a few kilograms to a few dozen kilograms of CO2, depending on the hotel and the method. Resorts that buy solar power, such as those described in our green casino resorts article, sit at the lower end during the day. Three nights might add anywhere from around 20 to 100 kg per room.
Add meals, shows and taxis, and a typical Bay Area weekend in Vegas plausibly lands somewhere around 200 to 500 kg of CO2 per person, with flying usually the largest part.
Playing online at home
A laptop typically draws a few tens of watts, a phone just a few. Three hours of play might use around 0.1 to 0.2 kWh on a laptop. On California's relatively clean grid that is a small fraction of a kilogram of CO2. The data centres and networks that run online games add a little more, but per player per evening the total is still tiny compared with travel. Even playing every night for a year would likely come to far less than one return flight.
Online casino gaming is only legal in some U.S. states, and California is not one of them for real-money casino games. Nevada allows online poker, and several other states, including New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Michigan, allow online casinos. Laws change, so check the rules where you live.
The fair comparison
- Travel dominates. If you want to cut the footprint of a casino trip, the way you get there matters most.
- Share the drive or travel with a group if flying is not essential.
- Stay longer, travel less often. One long trip beats several weekend flights.
- Choose greener resorts and skip daily towel and sheet changes.
- At home, the device is the footprint. Keep using the laptop or phone you already have; manufacturing new devices has a bigger impact than running them.
Rough footprint summary
- Round-trip flight
- About 150–400 kg CO2 per person
- Shared road trip
- Under 100 kg each with four people
- Three hotel nights
- Roughly 20–100 kg per room
- Evening online at home
- Well under 1 kg
- Biggest lever
- How you travel
Closer to home, a casino weekend in Reno or Tahoe by train is another option; see getting around car-free for the California Zephyr. And if you like your games with a nature theme, try our guide to eco-themed slots, board and card games.