The Once-Sober ETF Industry Finds a Home on a Vegas Casino Floor

At 5:30 a.m. at the Virgin Hotels Las Vegas, the ETF industry’s biggest annual conference was taking place on the casino floor.

Night owls were still working the slot machines while early risers from the fund industry snaked past them toward the gym, then to business meetings arranged just feet from the gamblers. Advertisements for exchange-traded funds, their tickers plastered across hotel walls, stood next to promos for late-night steak houses and racy shows. For three days in mid-March, some 1,500 of them gathered for the industry’s marquee annual event — and the setting matched the product.