Vegas

The series was co-created by Nicholas Pileggi, the chronicler of Las Vegas history and screenwriter of the film Casino, who also wrote the pilot episode.

The idea for Vegas first came to Pileggi while researching his book Casino; his research into 1970s and 80s Las Vegas led him to also want to write about the city in the 1960s, though it took 25 years for the idea to become a TV series.

Pileggi originally planned to develop the idea as a movie but found it difficult to fit into the traditional three-act cinematic structure.

Watching the TV series The Wire convinced Pileggi that a long-form television series was a more suitable format than film for telling this story.

The character of Sheriff Ralph Lamb, played by Dennis Quaid, is based on a real-life former rancher of the same name who served as Sheriff of Clark County from 1961 to 1979.

Despite being set in Las Vegas, the series was actually filmed in Las Vegas, New Mexico.

CBS initially gave Vegas a full 22-episode season order before reducing it to 21 episodes, and later moved the show to Friday nights before canceling it after just one season.