LAS Vegas has sure got a lot to answer for.

Being dangled over the side of the Stratosphere Casino’s X Scream rollercoaster 15 years ago instilled in me a fear of heights that has never dulled.

Sitting back and basking in the insane glory of the Golden Knights NHL pre-game show four years ago was to witness an event of that kind that has never been rivalled since.

In truth it spoiled every other half time or pre-match entertainment, no matter how much Robbie Williams tried to rev up the 2022 AFL Grand Final crowd.

In between those unforgettable moments there have been forensically planned boys trips, an impromptu late dash, an epic bachelor party and a million bizarre “only in Vegas” moments that will forever remain in the memory bank.

The Las Vegas that will host the 2024 Super Bowl is very different to the one I first visited deep in the global financial crisis.

I arrived fresh from a week in Cuba with two bottles of $2 duty free Havana Club rum in my carry-on and the New York New York hotel room cost $16 a night before we upgraded to the Bellagio to finish our Vegas stint.

It started a dumber-than-dumb first-night routine that has stayed with us since then.

Shower and shave, then straight to the New York casino roller coaster for a bone-rattling thrill ride that is more about nostalgia than actual sheer terror.

Then a ridiculously huge margarita-style concoction drunk out of a plastic boot served just next to the casino’s Coyote Ugly nightclub

Rituals duly served – whether with old mates or a new crowd – the entire attraction of Vegas is that you never know where the night is going to take you from there on in.

Most likely wandering back into your hotel lobby as dawn breaks with another catalogue of “what-the-hell-just happened” memories.

Every Super Bowl has its own narrative and its own beautiful story.

Last year it was the futuristic SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles, lauded as an “unparallelled sports and entertainment destination” as much as an old-fashioned football stadium.

Give me the LA Coliseum any day, but that’s a debate for another day that would take at least a full round of beers as we hashed out the tradition-versus-progress debate.

This year some of the Insider Sports crew in Phoenix are dovetailing a day at the Phoenix Open into a Super Bowl for the ages with Patrick Mahomes v Jalen Hurts.

Colour me just dead-set jealous given the spectacle at the 16th hole at Phoenix and the bacchanalian party atmosphere that flows at the skyscraper-style marquees surrounding the strip of golfing turf.

It might be golf’s most recognised hole apart from the seventh at Pebble Peach, any of a collection at Augusta’s Amen Corner and the Road Hole at St Andrews.

It is certainly the most fun.

That crew will go from TPC Scottsdale to a Super Bowl that is already drawing headlines like this one on the Slate website: “This Super Bowl Has the Makings of an All-Time Classic”.

As that article foreshadowed, this contest between Kansas City and the Philadelphia Eagles is near-perfect given both teams were No.1 seeds, both have quarterbacks capable of passing perfection, both are capable of glorious high-octane, high-scoring offence.

The perfect result for the impartial observer if you paid up to fly across the globe to witness this game?

Mahomes leads a fourth-quarter comeback to win his second Super Bowl in five seasons and truly begin the chase for Tom Brady in a month when the GOAT finally retired for good.

Which brings us back to Las Vegas.

The marvellous question anyone in attendance on February 11, 2024 at Allegiant Stadium will be able to judge is whether the Las Vegas party actually overshadows the Super Bowl itself.

In Las Vegas, the party always wins out.

It was why the city didn’t host major sporting franchises until 2017 when the NHL’s Golden Knights came to town as an expansion franchise.

Three years later the Las Vegas Raiders moved from Oakland to play at Allegiant Stadium – just off the Vegas strip but in the appropriately named town of Paradise.

Next year the Super Bowl comes to town, and to be honest the party will be so big no one will really care if the game itself is swallowed up in the hype.

My own experience was that the hype almost always overshadows the contest but that is the beauty of American sports.

The pre-game show in that Golden Knights game was a perfectly choreographed 30-minute show with all the hallmarks of a Vegas production – dancers, light and sound shows, booming drums, action in every corner of the new stadium, crowd interaction to hype you to fever pitch.

The video production beamed on the jumbo-tron style screen to introduce the history and formation of the Knights had all the hallmarks of a production scored by John Williams and directed by Spielberg.

The game itself?

Can barely remember a thing that happened.

But I will never forget walking down past the ARIA casino to that NHL game for what was essentially a time-filler given the NFL wasn’t yet in town.

And from the moment a Golden Knights marching band appeared out of nowhere with that staccato rhythm to lure punters into the T-Mobile Arena, being transported into the very best of what Vegas has to offer.

As a return visitor you will know your favourite hangouts, hotels and bars – Aria or Wynns or something mid-priced.

$100 high roller tables or skeezy $10 minimum blackjack tables where you can hit up the dealers for true-life Vegas tall tales while taking advantage of comped drinks to last through to dawn.

Vegas has always been all that and more for its denizens.

Next year throwing a Super Bowl into the equation makes it the biggest party America has ever thrown.