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Only U. S. state with legal prostitution

Nevada is the only U. S. state where prostitution is legally permitted in some form. Prostitution is legal in 10 of Nevada's 17 counties, although only six allow it in every municipality. Six counties have at least one active brothel, which mainly operate in isolated, rural areas. Officials in Las Vegas, afraid that Conforte would use the same technique to open a brothel nearby, convinced the legislature, in 1971, to enact legislation prohibiting the legalization of prostitution in counties with a population above a certain threshold, tailored to apply only to Clark County. and so the Chicken Ranch was allowed to operate. In another case, brothel owners in Lincoln County protested when the county outlawed prostitution in 1978, having issued licenses for seven years. The Nevada Supreme Court ruled, however, that the county had the right to do so. A state law prohibiting the advertising of brothels in counties which have outlawed prostitution was enacted in 1979. It was promptly challenged on First Amendment grounds, but in 1981, the Nevada Supreme Court declared it to be constitutional. (Princess Sea Industries, one of the parties involved in the case, was Plankinton's company that owned the Chicken Ranch.) In July 2007, the law was overturned by a U. S. District judge as "overly broad", and advertising in Las Vegas started soon after. In March 2010, the district judge's decision was reversed back by a three judge panel of the U. S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The ACLU appealed to the full Ninth Circuit Court in March 2010. It further appealed to the Supreme Court of the United States in 2011, but the Supreme Court refused to hear the appeal. The ban on brothels advertising therefore remains in force. While brothels and prostitutes are subject to federal income tax and also pay local fees, Nevada has no state income tax, and brothels are exempt from the state entertainment tax and do not pay any other state taxes. In 2005, brothel owners lobbied to be taxed in order to increase the legitimacy of the business, but the legislature declined. Brothels pay taxes to their respective counties. Lyon County receives approximately $400,000 to $500,000 per year from these taxes. In November 2005, former prostitute and madam Heidi Fleiss said that she would partner with brothel owner Joe Richards to turn Richards' existing Cherry Patch Ranch brothel in Crystal, Nye County, Nevada into an establishment that would employ male prostitutes and cater exclusively to female customers, a first in Nevada. In 2009, however, she said that she had abandoned her plans to open such a brothel due to wishing to avoid having to "deal with all the nonsense in the sex business" and preferring to focus on renewable energy which would be "perfect for Nevada. That's where the money is. That's the wave of the future." On December 11, 2009, the Nevada State Board of Health unanimously agreed to add urethral examinations to the guidelines, thus allowing male sex workers to be tested for sexually transmitted diseases.

Under Nevada state law, any county with a population of up to 700,000, as of the last decennial census is allowed to license brothels if it so chooses. Incorporated towns and cities in counties that allow prostitution may regulate the trade further or prohibit it altogether. Currently 6 out of Nevada's 17 counties have active brothels (these are all rural counties). As of September 2023, there are 19 active legal brothels in the state. All 10 of these rural counties have had at least one legal brothel in operation subsequent to 1971, but many of these brothels were financially unsuccessful or ran afoul of State health regulations. As of 2016, only seven of these counties have active brothels, while the other three (Churchill County, Esmeralda County and Humboldt County) no longer do. The precise licensing requirements vary by county. License fees for brothels range from an annual $100,000 in Storey County to an annual $200,000 in Lander County. Licensed prostitutes must be at least 21 years old, except in Storey County and Lyon County (where the minimum age is 18). The brothels and their employees must register with the county sheriff and receive regular medical checkups. Brothels have existed in Nevada since the old mining days of the 1800s and were first licensed in 1971. The legendary Mustang Ranch operated from 1971 through 1999, when it was forfeited to the federal government following a series of convictions for tax fraud, racketeering, and other crimes. Nevada law requires that registered brothel prostitutes be tested weekly (by a cervical specimen) for gonorrhea and Chlamydia trachomatis, and monthly for HIV and syphilis; furthermore, condoms are mandatory for all oral sex and sexual intercourse. Brothel owners may be held liable if customers become infected with HIV after a prostitute has tested positive for the virus. Women work a legally mandated minimum of nine days for each work period. Nevada has laws against engaging in prostitution outside of licensed brothels, against encouraging others to become prostitutes, and against living off the proceeds of a prostitute. In June 2009, then Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons signed the most stringent punishments nationwide for child prostitution and pandering. Assembly Bill 380, which allows for fines of $500,000 for those convicted of trafficking prostitutes younger than 14 and $100,000 for trafficking prostitutes ages 14 to 17. Both the House and the Senate unanimously approved the bill, which went into effect October 1, 2009.

Illegal prostitution is the most common form of prostitution in Nevada; the offense is a misdemeanor. The cities of Las Vegas and Reno have worked to expand their tourism base by attracting families to the hotels and casinos. Accordingly, the state legislature has made prostitution illegal in Clark County, and law enforcement agencies have tried to eliminate the once rampant street prostitution, enacting legislation against it in 1971. Nevertheless, prostitutes continue to work in casinos, where they wait in bars and attempt to make contact with potential clients. Of all the prostitution business in Nevada, only about 10% is legal, and 90% of illegal prostitution occurs in Las Vegas. The vast majority of prostitution in Nevada takes place illegally in the metropolitan areas of Las Vegas and Reno. Legal prostitution in Nevada grosses about $75 million per year while illegal prostitution in the Las Vegas area grosses about $5 billion per year. Some 300–400 prostitutes are arrested each month by the Las Vegas police. Escort services offering sexual services euphemistically as 'entertainment' or 'companionship' are ubiquitous, with a reported 104 pages of a Las Vegas yellow pages directory devoted to "entertainers". Flyers are dispensed to tourists and others along the Las Vegas Strip by freelance workers. These flyers also graphically depict female 'personal' entertainers or escort services. Despite the attempt to make the Las Vegas Strip more family friendly, such advertising for these services continues. In 2009 Las Vegas was identified by the FBI as one of 14 cities in the U. S. with high rates of child prostitution. Las Vegas police claimed that "roughly 400 children are picked off the streets from prostitution each year." The U. S. Justice Department has also named Las Vegas among the 17 most likely destinations for human trafficking.

Occasionally, lawmakers attempt to introduce legislation outlawing all prostitution in Nevada. These efforts are typically supported by owners of casinos and other large businesses, claiming that legalized prostitution harms the state's image. The Nevada Brothel Owners' Association, led by George Flint of Reno, lobbies against these laws. Rural lawmakers normally oppose these laws as well, despite the fact that legal brothel prostitution does not provide a significant amount of income for counties. A noted opponent of legalized prostitution in Nevada was John Reese. Initially arguing on moral and religious grounds, he switched to health hazard tactics, but had to back down in the face of a threatened libel suit. In 1994, he tried to get a license for a gay brothel in a thinly veiled attempt to galvanize opposition against all brothels. Five years later, he staged his own kidnapping near the Mustang Ranch. His efforts to collect enough signatures to repeal the prostitution laws have so far failed. Nevada politicians can (and generally do) play both sides of the prostitution dispute by declaring that they are personally opposed to prostitution but feel it should be up to the counties to decide. As almost three quarters of the population of Nevada lives in a single county (Clark County, where prostitution is illegal), county control over local matters is a hot button issue. Legislators from the northern counties will often reflexively oppose what is seen as "meddling" from the majority in the south, and the legislators from the south have been too divided on the issue to push through a state wide ban. Since 2003, Las Vegas mayor Oscar Goodman has repeatedly stated that he favors legalization of prostitution in the city, perhaps turning East Fremont Street into a little Amsterdam. Goodman said there are pragmatic reasons to back legalized prostitution. Those include the acknowledgement that illegal prostitution is occurring and that brothels could provide safer, regulated and revenue generating sex, he said. The brothel owners' organization, supported by Democratic State Senator Bob Coffin, has been pushing for taxation of the brothels, to increase the industry's legitimacy. The proposal, which would have instituted a $5 tax per act of prostitution, with the proceeds partly being used for a sex worker counseling agency, was voted down in the Taxation Committee in April 2009. In February 2011, U. S. Senator Harry Reid suggested that brothels be made illegal in Nevada.

The opinions of Nevada residents vary, but the majority appears to support the status quo of prostitution: they support laws allowing licensed brothels in the rural areas, but oppose the legalization of prostitution in Las Vegas. A poll conducted in Nevada in 2002 found that 52% of the 600 respondents favored the existing legal and regulated brothels, while 31% were against laws that allow prostitution and the remainder were undecided, preferred fewer legal constraints on prostitution, or did not offer an opinion. In 2003, nearly 60% of Nevada residents opposed the legalization of brothels and prostitution in Las Vegas (59% opposed this idea, 35% supported it and 6% did not know or did not answer). Again, support was stronger in the rural areas (where most people were born in Nevada) and weaker in Clark County and Washoe County; women were more opposed to the idea than men. In 2004, after the closure of the last brothel in Churchill County, a county ballot initiative to permanently ban prostitution in that county was defeated by a 2–1 margin. A July 2011 Public Policy Polling survey found that 56% of Nevada voters thought that prostitution should be legal, while only 32% thought it should be illegal and 12% were not sure. A June 2012 Public Policy Polling survey found that 64% of Nevada voters thought that brothels should be legal in the state, while only 23% thought they should be illegal, and 13% were not sure. In 2018, Lyon County voted by a 3 to 1 margin to reject Question 1, which would have repealed the county's brothel ordinance and closed four brothels in Mound House.

Crystal, Nye County, Nevada, had a brothel art museum associated with two local brothels. Visitors have reported it was primarily newspaper clippings. As of 2020 both Crystal brothels were closed.