Las Vegas has a new vice. You might not notice it, but it’s happening all around, in industrial warehouses, luxury high-rises and the bedrooms of suburban homes.

Porn is here, and more could be coming. With an estimated 90 percent drop in adult film permits issued in Los Angeles County after the 2012 passage of a controversial law requiring adult film performers to wear condoms on set, California’s $6 billion porn juggernaut is looking elsewhere, and its gaze has landed on Las Vegas.

Inexpensive and just an hour’s plane ride away, Nevada offers a vice-friendly attitude and lax film regulations that make the valley an attractive destination for adult filmmakers.

Still, porn’s ties to Southern California run deep, and its escape over state lines remains as much a political play as a quest for opportunity. There’s no promise the industry will stay, let alone grow, once the dust of heated political battles settles.

As California policymakers push to apply condom requirements statewide and the adult industry threatens to take its revenue stream elsewhere, Nevada finds itself pitched in the middle, eyed as both a pawn and a backup plan among two warring sides. Whether porn’s courtship with Las Vegas will be just a fling or the first steps into a new economic driver for the state remains to be seen.

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