Preface: I love Vegas and feel strongly about my experiences at UNLV so forgive my passion. It is my own opinion at the end of the day.
As someone who grew up, went to school, and worked in tech in Vegas, I place some of the blame on UNLV and its computer science program.
The computer science curriculum taught at UNLV is designed to do nothing more than churn on casino gaming employees; it's so extreme that the only web development course doesn't even count towards your computer science degree. It's absolutely bonkers to me how students are trained from the start to feed right into the golden handcuffs of the casino industry and yet people wonder why Vegas can't get it's tech industry started.
There's just simply no local talent pool here as a result. The casino industry is, in my opinion, a solved domain with little innovation room for incoming passionate engineers. I remember applying to a big gaming company here for an internship while at UNLV, and they legitimately couldn't provide a clear answer to "How often do you innovate within your domain, and what are some examples".
I feel fortunate that I had already found an interest in topics outside the gaming industry and managed to land a job here for a tech company constantly moving the needle in a challenging domain.
