How Much Money Do I Need for Vegas? (2026 Budget Breakdown)

Every number in this guide falls into one of three tiers. Budget is a traveler who wants a real Vegas trip without burning cash, staying on or near the Strip, eating a mix of casual spots and one nicer meal, skipping bottle service, and setting a small gambling stake they are fine losing.

Mid-Range is the most common trip. A solid Strip hotel, a real show, a couple of nicer dinners, a night out, and a gambling budget that lets you actually play for a few hours without white-knuckling every hand.

High-Roller is the trip where money is not the constraint. Premium rooms or suites, top-tier restaurants, VIP tables or bottle service, and a gambling stake that reflects real bankroll, not just fun money. Use these tiers as a starting point and mix and match. Plenty of people book a mid-range room and spend high-roller money on one big dinner.

Hotel and resort fee: expect roughly $70 to $110 a night for a decent room on or near the Strip once you add the resort fee, which typically runs $40 to $55 a night on top of the room rate.

Food: plan on about $40 to $60 a day if you mix a quick breakfast, a casual lunch like a food court or off-Strip taco spot, and one modest sit-down dinner.

Drinks: figure roughly $20 to $30 a day if you are drinking casually, leaning on the free drinks you get while playing at a low-stakes machine or table and tipping the server a dollar or two a round.

Shows: budget tier usually means skipping paid shows most nights and leaning on the free spectacle instead, the Bellagio fountains, the Fremont Street Experience, the Sphere's free exterior light show. If you do want one show, discount ticket booths and weekday matinees can get a ticket into the $40 to $70 range.

Gambling stake: a reasonable number here is $40 to $75 a day if you want to play without the stress of real money on the line, treating it as entertainment spend you are fine losing.

Transport: plan on roughly $15 to $25 a day if you are mostly walking and using the free trams, with a rideshare or two mixed in. Airport to the Strip by rideshare typically runs $20 to $30 one way.

All in, a Budget tier day lands somewhere around $220 to $260, not counting flights.

Hotel and resort fee: expect roughly $180 to $260 a night for a well-located Strip room including the resort fee, more if you are staying somewhere newer or right in the middle of the action.

Food: plan on about $90 to $130 a day with a nicer breakfast, a real lunch, and at least one proper dinner at a restaurant with a wait list, not a fast counter.

Drinks: figure roughly $50 to $75 a day between a couple of cocktails at dinner, a round or two at a bar, and drinks while gambling.

Shows: this is where most people spend real money and should. A solid ticket for a Cirque show, a headliner residency, or a comedy show typically runs $90 to $180 depending on the act and seat location, so amortized across the trip that is roughly $30 to $60 a day.

Gambling stake: a common mid-range number is $100 to $150 a day, enough to play table games or higher-denomination slots for a real session without treating it as a bankroll test.

Transport: plan on roughly $25 to $40 a day mixing rideshare, the occasional Deuce bus pass, and maybe one Monorail day pass if your hotel is on the route.

All in, a Mid-Range day lands somewhere around $475 to $650, not counting flights.

Hotel and resort fee: expect $450 to $900 or more a night for a suite or premium tower room at a top property, and that is before you factor in a villa-level stay, which runs well past that.

Food: plan on $200 to $350 a day if you are eating at the marquee steakhouses and chef-driven restaurants, ordering wine, and not looking at the tasting menu upcharge twice.

Drinks and nightlife: figure $150 to $400 a day if bottle service or a table at a nightclub or dayclub is part of the plan, since a single table minimum on a busy weekend can run into the thousands split across a group.

Shows: premium seating for a top residency or a Sphere concert can run $200 to $500 a ticket, so plan roughly $100 to $200 a day amortized if you are catching a show most nights.

Gambling stake: this is genuinely personal and should reflect real bankroll, not a fixed formula, but $300 to $1,000 plus a day is the realistic range for someone playing at higher limits.

Transport: plan on $50 to $150 a day for a private car service or consistent premium rideshare instead of standard pickup.

All in, a High-Roller day starts around $1,200 and climbs fast from there depending on the table games and the nightlife plans.

Multiply the daily numbers above by your trip length and you get a rough total, but the math is not perfectly linear because resort fees and the gambling stake behave differently the longer you stay. Here is the shape of it.

A 2 day trip is mostly a show, one big dinner, and a short gambling session, so per-day spending tends to run slightly higher since you are not spreading fixed costs like the flight or a splurge meal across many days. I break this one down fully in the 2 day guide.

A 3 day trip is the highest-demand length for a reason, long enough for two real nights out and a recovery day, and it is the sweet spot where the per-day cost starts to even out. Full numbers are in the 3 day guide.

A 4 day trip lets you diversify food and activities more, which usually lowers the average daily food spend since you are not eating every meal at a marquee restaurant, while total gambling stake usually rises even if the daily stake stays flat or drops slightly. See the 4 day guide for the complete breakdown.

A 5 day trip is where resort fee and parking fee compounding becomes the biggest line item after the room itself, and where most people should reconsider the gambling stake math to avoid one bad session eating the whole trip's fun budget. Full numbers in the 5 day guide.

If your trip lands over New Year's, throw all of this out and check the NYE-specific guide instead, because hotel rates, dinner packages, and rideshare pricing all shift dramatically for that one week.

Resort fees are the single most underestimated line item. At $40 to $55 a night, a resort fee alone adds $200 to $275 to a 5 night stay before you have spent a dollar on anything fun, and it is charged whether you use the pool or the gym or not.

Timing changes everything. A midweek trip in a shoulder season month can run 30 to 50 percent cheaper on the room alone compared to a weekend during a major convention or a big fight week, when room rates can double or triple with almost no notice.

Gambling stake advice does not scale linearly with trip length. A single day trip can justify a bigger one-time stake since there is only one shot at a session, while a longer trip does better with a smaller daily stake repeated across more days, since that spreads variance and keeps one bad night from wrecking the whole budget.

Group size matters more than people expect. A hotel room and a rideshare split three or four ways brings the per-person daily cost down significantly, while food and drinks barely change per person, so bigger groups get a real discount on lodging and transport specifically.

Book direct with the hotel's loyalty program instead of a third-party site. It is free to join, it sometimes waives or discounts the resort fee, and it stacks comps over the stay that a third-party booking never earns.

Skip the paid parking entirely when you can. Most Strip resorts now charge $15 to $25 a day for self-park, and a handful of properties still offer free or cheap self-parking, so check before you assume every hotel charges.

Mix in the free stuff on purpose, not as a fallback. The Bellagio fountains, the Fremont Street canopy show, and the Sphere's exterior light show are genuinely good and cost nothing, so use them to cover a night or two and save the ticket budget for the one or two shows you actually want.

Pull cash away from the Strip. Casino floor ATMs charge $8 to $10 a withdrawal, some of the worst fees in the country, so hit a bank or grocery store ATM a few blocks off-Strip before you head out for the night.

"Vegas is cheap if you gamble a little" is not really true anymore. Comps and free play still exist, but they scale with how much you actually put through a machine or a table, not with how badly you want a free room. Treat any comp as a nice bonus on top of a budget you already planned, never as the plan itself.

"You need a huge bankroll to have fun at the tables" is also off. A Budget tier gambling stake of $40 to $75 a day buys a genuine hour or two at a low-limit table or a bank of slot machines, and the free drinks that come with it, without putting real money at risk.

"Flights are the expensive part" depends entirely on when you book and where you fly from, but for most travelers the hotel and its resort fee end up costing more across a multi-night stay than the flight itself, especially once resort fees and parking are added in.

"All-inclusive Vegas packages save money" is worth checking case by case. Some bundle real value, especially around a specific show or dinner, but plenty just repackage the same room, resort fee, and a mediocre buffet credit at a marked-up combined price. Price out the pieces separately before assuming the bundle is the deal.