Oh yeah!! If you are not from one of the states that have In-N-Out Burger joints, you have to go. I don’t get to CA, NV or AZ often, but when I do, I make sure to make a stop or two at In-N-Out.
I just looked on their website, and they are now in Utah and Texas, in addition to the three states above. Wish they were in PA, but that is likely a long time off.
Sadly, the lion habitat at the MGM Grand has been gone for a couple of years now.
The $11.99 steak and lobster dinner at Tony Roma in the Fremont Hotel was also great. So was the heart attack grill.
The buffet at the MGM grand was possibly the worst food I have ever eaten in a restaurant
No, and no.
Affordable eats needs definition. In-N-Out is affordable. So is Sammy’s on Trop. You get what you pay for at a buffet these days, and the sweet spot is Studio B at M Resort. Great food at a reasonable price, beer and wine included in the price.
As for cheap entertainment, find a spot at Margaritaville (upstairs) on a Saturday morning, order breakfast and a Bloody Mary or 3 and watch the Walks of Shame down Las Vegas Boulevard.
The Rio carnival parade is fun to watch (assuming they’re still running it)
They aren’t.
Yes and yes. A meal at heart attack grill is about $15 (not bad by vegas standards). Also in & out sucks, it is a gimmicky fast food joint worth trying once but after that not worth going back.
Au contraire. Tony Roma’s sucks donkey balls, and the Heart Attack Grill is the same sort of sub-standard dreck that is served at Hash House A Go Go - mediocre food served in huge portions by skanks on a three week meth binge. 
Real BBQ is available in Vegas by just stepping off LVB a block and walking into Rollin’ Smoke BBQ, about a block from Fashion Show Plaza. Now them’s good eats!
We actually ate at that buffet about 5 years back and thought it was pretty good. Maybe you had a bad day, or maybe we got lucky. For what it’s worth, at 30 dollars apiece it wasn’t cheap - but the endless variety made it well worth it.
You don’t have to stay on the Strip - we actually stayed at a very nice place in Henderson, 2-room suite, for a very affordable price.
Valley of Fire State Park was well worth an hour or two - it’s northeast of the city, en route to where we were headed (Kanab UT).
There may be places where you can access Lake Mead for swimming purposes (we had gone to Lake Powell a few days before so didn’t bother). Hoover Dam is definitely worth seeing though the tours themselves aren’t free. Hopefully with the new bridge open, the delays getting to and across it won’t be as bad as when we were there - security checkpoints made the road VERY slow.
The lions at MGM may be gone, but the flamingos at the Flamingo are still free to gawk at, and it’s only about $20 to see the dolphins and white tigers in the Siegfried & Roy preserve at the Mirage.
I can personally testify in regards to the above poster that the wait to cross the state line at the Hoover Dam is no longer an issue - the Pat Tillman memorial bridge has no checkpoint and traffic flows across it freely, and the old highway that lead over the dam is now closed (and in fact is physically barricaded on the AZ side); there is still a checkpoint on the NV side where a Homeland Security rent-a-cop checks you out, but it’s a pretty peremptory exam and the tour bus I was on wasn’t even slowed down at all by it.
I’ll nth Fremont Street as a great place to do Vegas on the cheap - there are plenty of $2 street tacos and 99-cent margaritas, and the D (formerly Fitzgerald’s, the last of the great Mob-owned casinos) has an upstairs section dedicated to old school coin-op slot machines that’s not to be missed, including one of only two Sigma Derby machines known to be operating in the world today, which is a great place to park and enjoy free cocktails while betting 25 cents at a time and probably breaking even in the long run.
There are a few kiosks along the central Strip where one can buy half-price tickets for shows happening that night. The lines are usually pretty long, though they’re kind enough as to install misters above the queue so you don’t die of heatstroke while waiting in line.
Caesars has a deal at where for around $50 or so, you get a 24-hour pass to all the buffets at all of their Strip locations, which includes the Rio, Paris, the Flamingo, Bally’s, and quite a few other places.
Lastly, I’m going to have to recommend a taco shop I can’t even remember the name of. They’re on the north end of the Strip, about a block south of the Peppermill, near Circus Circus and the soon-to-be-former-site of the Riviera since it’s being demolished soon. It’s a branch location of a taco shop that wasn’t far from where I lived in San Diego many years ago, and it is utterly amazing.
Honestly, though, the best recommendation I can offer is to do Vegas right in July or August, in the heart of the summer heat. The Strip hotels mark down their rooms to next to nothing in order to get people in during the summer months, and you really shouldn’t be outdoors in Vegas for most of the time anyway.
The Palace Station Hotel and Casino has cheap rooms in the $40 - $50 range during the week. They also have free shuttles to and from the strip and to and from the airport. It has several restaurants, as well, some of them reasonably priced.
nm
Not free since 1998, according to the official site. It’s $7 for cars, although if you have an annual pass for the National Parks, it’s good there.
As for food, the buffet at Paris, while not exactly cheap, is better than many, and a good value, IMHO. And the Mob Museum is worth a visit, especially if you’re already dowtown near Fremont St.
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Ooh, Peppermill! I was in Vegas last year with some friends and we had a blast at Peppermill and, especially, the adjacent Fireside Lounge. Oh, the food and drinks were just fair but the atmosphere is one of a kind.