On some nights in late autumn, you can hear the distinct clatter of a wooden top striking a felt-covered table in a back room off Fremont Street. It’s not one of the well-known ones, nor is it the type with velvet ropes or bottle service. For a city built on spectacle and loudness like Las Vegas, the sound is almost comical. However, none of the people seated around that table are laughing. They are observing a dreidel spin with the same level of concentration that is typically associated with a World Series of Poker final table.
In some areas of the US, competitive dreidel has been around for more than ten years. When Major League Dreidel first appeared in New York in 2007, it gave a game that most people associate with kids, chocolate coins, and Hanukkah celebrations a lighthearted legitimacy. Spinners took on stage names. The crowds applauded. Yes, it was humorous, but the competition was real. There was a lot of pride at stake, and the longest spin won. However, what has transpired in Las Vegas since then has taken that idea and done what Vegas does to everything: it has eliminated the irony, increased money, and increased pressure.
Over the past few years, underground dreidel leagues have emerged in Las Vegas, and they function with a purposeful informality. Other than the occasional hand-stamped T-shirt, there are no television contracts, official sanctioning bodies, or branded goods. Games alternate between rented event venues, private homes, and sometimes the back rooms of downtown bars, which are willing to host anything that attracts a crowd. The cost of entry varies. On certain nights, it costs fifty dollars. On other occasions, during what players refer to as “summit spins,” buy-ins are said to reach the low thousands. Participants claim that during the busiest time of year, around Hanukkah, pot sizes can reach five figures.
There are subtle and important differences between the rules and the children’s version. Standard dreidel determines whether a player takes nothing, takes the entire pot, takes half, or adds to it by assigning outcomes to each of the four Hebrew letters: nun, gimel, hey, and shin. The competitive Vegas version maintains those fundamental features while adding side pots, structured betting rounds, and what players refer to as a handicapping system based on dreidel weight and surface material. Some players bring their own tops, which are balanced to their own specifications and custom-milled from hardwood or brass. The similarities to serious pool players who travel with their own cues are difficult to ignore.
But it’s not just the money that gives the scene a distinctly Las Vegas vibe. It’s the clash of cultures. With the Raiders, Golden Knights, Formula 1, and the upcoming Oakland A’s ballpark on the former Tropicana site, the city has reimagined itself as a legitimate sports capital over the past ten years. Pickleball championships at the Plaza Hotel and NASCAR events are now held in Vegas. A dreidel league doesn’t feel as weird in that context as it might seem. In this city, poker evolved from a card game to a televised phenomenon. It makes sense to add structure, stakes, and spectators to another game of skill and chance.
Nonetheless, there is conflict in the community over how visible one should be. Citing worries that widespread media attention would lead to regulatory scrutiny or, worse, turn the entire event into a novelty, a number of organizers declined to speak on the record. In the words of one player, who only provided his first name, “the game changes, and not in a good way, the moment ESPN shows up.” Regulars believe that the intimacy is the key, and that the small space, the stakes, and the ridiculous beauty of witnessing grown adults hold their breath over a spinning top are what make these events so captivating.
It’s genuinely unclear if Dreidel will ever advance from underground curiosity to official competition in Las Vegas. Since the 2018 Supreme Court ruling opened the floodgates on sports betting nationwide, the city’s appetite for new types of organized gambling seems limitless. In 2023 alone, Americans bet more than $100 billion on sports, a startling increase from the previous year. A four-sided top from an ancient tradition has carved out an unlikely niche for itself somewhere in that deluge of money and appetite for novelty.
The neon is still buzzing on Fremont Street. The odds are still flashed by the major sportsbooks. Additionally, someone is setting a specially weighted dreidel on green felt in a room you would pass by without realizing it, watching it wobble, and waiting to see which letter faces up when it falls.