The NRL returned to Las Vegas for the second time over the weekend. (Getty Images: Ethan Miller )
If you're going to make it in Las Vegas you need to accept that two opposite things can be true at the same time.
The desert sand can turn to gold and still slip through your fingers. Every night finishes both too early and too late.
The lights of the casinos glitter and sparkle like heaven but a wrong turn off the strip into the dark alleys where desperation rules is a reminder the depths of hell are never far away. You can be whatever you want, so long as you can live with it afterwards.
That's why the NRL's American dream can be both a triumph and a failure and you can be both romantic and cynical about it. For existing fans of the game, it is already undeniably a success because the pilgrimage to Allegiant Stadium has fast become the great football adventure of a lifetime.
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Photo shows Penrith Panthers Nathan Cleary, Liam Martin, Paul Alamoti and Izack Tago celebrate after an NRL try against Cronulla Sharks.
And come they did, from all corners of the rugby league world, for the league's second foray into Vegas. The city is too big and wild to ever be completely taken over, but you couldn't go more than five minutes all week without seeing a jersey.
Australian, New Zealander and northern English accents cut through the warmth of the day and the cold of the night, but you met all types and they mixed together in the strangest of ways.
One night at a bar called the Tilted Kilt, which served as an unofficial headquarters for Cronulla fans (two for one drinks if you could prove you were a Sharks fan and they played Up Up Cronulla every few hours), there was a reunion of old Warriors players. On the next table was a Ukrainian fella who stumbled onto rugby league by chance one night and fell in love with the game enough that he flew in from Chicago for the match.
The week was exorbitant and the games were a spectacle. The Wigan-Warrington clash devolved into a blowout, but the English fans created an atmosphere that made it more than worthwhile to get to Allegiant early on.
After Bevan French and Jai Field led the Super League champions to an easy win, the cherry and white fans mingled with the Raiders faithful in their neighbouring bay and the resulting noise turned the Canberra-Warriors match into a party.
The travelling fans created a brilliant atmosphere during the Raiders-Warriors clash. (Getty Images: Ethan Miller )
The Raiders' impressive victory was a blow to the enormous Kiwi contingent, who dwarfed all the other fanbases, and the Jillaroos' 90-4 belting of England began as a flat spot but Australia's dominance came all the way around and engaged the punters again as they started to hope for the century.
There were some empty seats by the end, but Penrith's victory over Cronulla was of high enough quality that it gave some life to the crowd after three almost uncontested games, 7 hours and way too many overpriced beers.
Once it was over, the hordes streamed out into the night with full hearts and undoubtedly woke the next morning with sore heads and empty wallets. Vegas isn't cheap but the night felt priceless.
When it comes to creating an experience, launching the season in spectacular and prominent fashion and hammering a new marquee date on the calendar, the Vegas games are winners.
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Photo shows Cronulla Sharks players in a huddle inside Allegiant Stadium
But all of that is for the rusted-on fans who are already part of the game. Preaching to the faithful is easier than converting the masses and, if we're going to tell it like it is, the chances of America taking up the way of the Steeden are beyond remote.
There were Americans there to be sure. Every few rows you could hear a confused local asking about the rules, particularly when it came to obstructions or scrums. But there is still a long way to go if the NRL wants that slice of American betting and television money.
If it's even possible, cutting through the already crowded American sports scene to capture the tiny percentage of the market the NRL covets would take decades and untold sums, which is why it's just as easy to be sceptical about all this as it is to be swept up in the possibilities.
These Vegas games won't last forever. The initial agreement was for five years, so we're approaching the halfway point and there have already been reports of the NRL looking for new locations such as London, New York and Miami.
And while the league did well to schedule the Warriors, who have a large fanbase with a willingness to travel, and the Super League sides, opening up England as a new market, those are likely one-time plays in a town that underlines the "once" in once-in-a-lifetime.
But there was a good point made by a former USA international player at a reunion for the American National Rugby League midway through the week.
These were the truest believers of all, the ones who got the sport started in America in the early 1990s and did all the hard work to try and get it going a long way from the Vegas lights. Their passion for the game is inspiring.
All of them were optimistic about the future of the game in the US — you don't do something like form a rugby league competition if you aren't a believer in the possibilities it offers — but they know better than anyone the odds the game is facing.
"Even if it doesn't happen, these games give guys like us hope and that's still important," the old Tomahawk said.
And that matters because money can buy you almost anything in Las Vegas, but you can't put a price on the dream.
If the tables clean you out, it might be all you leave with and that might not be enough for rugby league to thrive under the stars and stripes, but it's a lot better than nothing.
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