Bo Bernhard, UNLV’s vice president of economic development who oversees the university’s Black Fire Research Institute — an innovation research lab dedicated to developing products for the gaming and hospitality industries — says Las Vegas is in the process of becoming the center of the “fun economy.”

A decade ago, he authored a paper on how Las Vegas gaming operators could export their economic capital and become “the global command center for the international gaming industry.” 

Since that paper was written, sports betting, once a Nevada-only business, is now legal in 38 states, Washington, D.C., and Canada, boosted in part by Caesars Entertainment and MGM Resorts International. U.S. gaming equipment providers supply casinos throughout the world. Meanwhile, the United Arab Emirates is looking at implementing a Nevada-style gaming regulatory system led by former MGM Resorts CEO Jim Murren.  

Bernhard said the same effort can now be put toward the “fun economy” as Las Vegas is quickly emerging as an international destination for sports. Super Bowl LVIII will be held at Allegiant Stadium on Feb. 11, the Formula One Las Vegas Grand Prix took over the Strip in November and the NCAA Final Four — the culmination of the men’s college basketball tournament — will be hosted at Allegiant Stadium in 2028.

“Vegas is the global intellectual capital for what is produced in tourism, sports and entertainment,” said Bernhard, whose enthusiasm makes him the ultimate hype guy when it comes to all things Las Vegas and UNLV. He also noted the precedent of Strip resorts hosting championship boxing matches going back decades.

Longtime gaming executive Quinton Singleton, who was Bernhard’s co-author of the “Introducing the Fun Economy” paper, is equally exuberant on Las Vegas benefiting from the convergence of sports, entertainment and tourism.

“We know how to change the landscape, not just in a single city and not just in a single country,” Singleton said of the Las Vegas gaming, tourism and sports industry. “We’ve changed the landscape with the fun economy on a global scale, over and over again.”

In 2022, Bernhard and Singleton wrote that the “fun economy” included $8.4 trillion from tourism, $2.6 trillion from sports and $2.7 trillion from entertainment, according to numbers from the International Monetary Fund. Gaming, both in casinos and online, factored into the entertainment sector.

The authors said the combined sectors equated to almost 14 percent of the global gross domestic product.

“Remarkably, just under 14 percent of every dollar, yen, euro, peso, and all the money spent on earth is spent in the ‘Fun Economy,’” Bernhard and Singleton wrote.

Singleton launched Zero Labs in 2022, an accelerator program focused on helping startups and early stage companies that target gaming, hospitality, entertainment and sports. The business operates out of UNLV’s Black Fire, located in the 122-acre UNLV Harry Reid Research and Technology Park in southwest Las Vegas. 

Zero Labs is holding a launch event at Black Fire this weekend for nearly two dozen startups. Singleton said the inaugural accelerator program will take the companies through intensive sessions with a targeted outcome of getting them ready to pitch to venture capitalists.

“It's not just about launching small businesses. It's also about taking existing small businesses and growing them,” Singleton said.

Bernhard suggested the timing is right to bring new businesses into each of the “fun economy” sectors, which are growing ahead of traditional economic sectors. According to Zero Labs’ research, at $13.7 billion, the “fun economy” as a whole is larger than global construction ($8.2 trillion), global pharmaceutical ($1.48 trillion) and global apparel retail ($1.8 trillion).

“It's fun. You buy fun. You buy travel, you buy sports, you buy entertainment, and that includes gambling,” Bernhard said. “For leaders of the fun economy, the macro news is rosy. The future of the global economy is bending in your direction.”