The lesson from Prince Harry’s Las Vegas bash

Prince Harry threw quite the rager in a Wynn Las Vegas suite earlier this month. The party apparently included a game of strip billiards with some young women. We know this because photos of Prince Harry in his birthday suit found their way online last week. Those blurred snapshots immediately created embarrassment and controversy for the royal family - and, of course, priceless buzz for Sin City.

That bad-boy Prince Harry would indulge in such revelry in the privacy of a Las Vegas hotel room is perfectly fine. He's 27 and single. Las Vegas has moved far beyond a mere gambling destination to become the world's premier party town, with an unrivaled combination of restaurants, shopping, live entertainment, swimming pools and nightclubs. What takes place between consenting adults, behind the closed doors of guest rooms, is nobody's business.

Unless, of course, those people are dumb enough to let anyone take out their smartphone and start snapping pictures. Once that happens, things never end well.

Indeed, now a website is reporting that illegal drugs were part of Prince Harry's party, although so far no one is alleging that he used them. That's a problem for any hotel with a privileged gaming license. If images of those activities become public, all bets are off. Ask Bruno Mars and Paris Hilton how having drugs in Las Vegas worked out for them.

The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority has had fun with the affair, spinning a "Keep Calm and Carry On Harry" promotional blitz off of its successful "Know the Code" campaign, which famously scolds anyone who posts compromising Las Vegas photos and anecdotes on social media. After all, what happens here stays here (ideally). Prince Harry's blunder has been very, very good for Las Vegas.

But he has also provided a valuable lesson to younger generations, who can't imagine doing anything without documenting it on their smartphones: Once something is uploaded to the Internet, it's there forever, for all potential future partners and employers to see.

Everyone has made mistakes and done stupid things. For most older people, though, mistakes live on only in memories. For the rich and famous Prince Harry, third in line for the British throne, several more moments of such stupidity will have no long-term impact on his life. His Nazi Halloween costume of several years ago has been long forgotten.

The rest of us would never be so lucky.