It was a blockbuster payday.

The $4.2 billion cash sale of the Bellagio was, by all appearances, the most expensive purchase ever of a Las Vegas casino, and it could have generated a $21 million-plus windfall in real estate sales taxes. But when the famed megaresort traded from one powerhouse company to another in fall 2019, the tax bill didn’t amount to a dime.

It is far from alone.

Numerous high-priced deals in Southern Nevada — worth hundreds of millions or more than a billion dollars apiece — have been structured in ways that allowed the buyers and sellers to avoid paying real estate transfer taxes that support schools and low-income housing in Nevada, a Review-Journal investigation has found.