I would strongly suggest that for your first visit to Las Vegas you stay on the strip.

If you are looking to save money on the room there are places on the strip that are not very expensive -- try the Tropicana, Riviera, Stardust, new frontier (there is a coupon in the LVA POV for a free upgrade to a suite), Casino Royale, Flamingo.

If your not going to stay on the strip for your first visit, downtown has some very inexpensive places to stay.

A good resource for locating room prices from various sites is at www.travelaxe.com