Las Venturas

Las Venturas is a city located in the U.S state of San Andreas. It is the seat and largest city of Las Venturas County. It is the second largest city in the state of San Andreas and is commonly known as the entertainment capital of the world. Founded in 1908 as a rail-way stop between Los Santos and Fort Carson.

History
At the turn of the 19th century, there was nothing but desert wastelands in what is today known as Las Venturas County. The new town Fort Carson was founded as a small industrial community on the outskirts of San Fierro and Los Santos in 1902. Oil was discovered in the area and that drew heavy amounts of people from all across the world to settle in the area. Las Venturas was founded in 1908 as a "get away" location for the workers of Fort Carson. Las Venturas quickly grew as a popular stop along the railroad where mining and oil workers would stop in at the local casinoes with their hardly earned cash, for it to be gambled away or spent on prostitutes for the evening.

As of 1912, the population of Las Venturas had grown significantly, and was recognized as the largest town north of the San Andreas river, surpassing the population of Fort Carson as of 1913. Las Venturas quickly grew and became a popular travel destination nationwide by the end of World War I. World-class hotels and casinoes were built in downtown Las Venturas. The city became a mecca for organized crime and by the 1930's, most hotels and casinoes were owned by mafia families from Liberty City and Chicago. The city tried to reverse this trend by opening up lots south of downtown for casino and hotel development. The area now known as "The Strip" was also soon heavily developed with five-star resorts. The city's plan of avoiding mobster ownership did however fail miserably. The owners of the casinos in downtown slowly bought out the owners of the Strip casinos. The new distribution of casinos and hotels did however break up the monopoly the mafia had back before the 1950's. By 1985, 85% of casinos were reportedly owned by a criminal organization. In a effort to break the high concentration of wealth in Las Venturas compared to the sorrounding counties being one of North America's poorest, the city enacted a ban on prostitution in the county of Las Venturas. This led to a booming economy for the sorrounding towns of Las Venturas such as Fort Carson and Las Barrancas, recieving a growing population for the first time since the mid-1910's.