Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Surprise: Las Vegas tops list of America’s most sinful cities

Las Vegas Sign

Steve Marcus

Tourists take photos at the Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas sign Saturday, March 14, 2015, on the Strip.

Who's been naughty? And who's been nice?

Those aren't just questions that Santa Claus is pondering up at the North Pole, as he comes up with his legendary lists.

They are also questions that personal-finance website WalletHub has tackled, with the goal of creating a list of 2019's Most Sinful Cities. The website rated 180-plus cities based on seven sinful behaviors — anger and hatred, jealousy, excesses and vices, greed, lust, vanity and laziness.

No Bay Area city makes the top 10 list, which, not surprisingly, is topped by "Sin City" itself — Las Vegas.

The most sinful city in the Bay Area, however, is San Francisco, according to the report. San Francisco comes in at No. 26, sandwiched between Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and Charleston, West Virginia.

Oakland ranks at No. 112, just ahead of Amarillo, Texas. San Jose is at No. 124, just behind Greensboro, North Carolina.

And the least sinful city in the Bay Area — at least among the ones included in this study — is ... Fremont.

Take a bow, Fremont. You're No. 173, which puts you among the Top 10 Least Sinful Cities in America. One of the things working in Fremont's favor is that it has the lowest share (14.7 percent) of obese adults. That's 3.1 times lower than Detroit, which tops that category with 34.10 percent.

And San Jose has something to feel good about as well. The Bay Area's biggest city reportedly has the lowest share of adult smokers (8.29 percent) in the nation. Compare that with St. Louis, which tops that category with 24.69 percent.

Here are the results:

The 10 Most Sinful Cities in America

1 Las Vegas

2. Los Angeles

3. New York

4. Houston

5. St. Louis

6. Atlanta

7. Miami

8. Philadelphia

9. Chicago

10. Orlando

Least Sinful Cities

1. South Burlington, VT

2. Pearl City, HI

3. Columbia, MD

4. Burlington, VT

5. Chesapeake, VA

6. Portland, ME

7. Cedar Rapids, IA

8. Bridgeport, CT

9. Virginia Beach, VA

10. Fremont, CA

Full the full report, visit here.