Las Vegas is America's most sinful city, according to new research.

The next most sinful US cities are St Louis, Cincinnati, Orlando, Springfield, Miami, Richmond, Baton Rouge, Pittsburgh and New Orleans.

New York and Los Angeles emerged as surprisingly sinless in the analysis of the 150 biggest US cities. New York came in at 131 and LA was six places higher at 137.

The study by WalletHub, the personal finance website, was based on publicly available data around 27 key indicators of 'sinful' deeds, such as violent crime, drunknenness and adulterers.

Analyst Jill Gonzalez told the Christian Post that the company included sins that relate to personal finance, such as debt, identity theft and fraud.

"With 2017 right around the corner, we're hoping residents of these cities incorporate the findings into their New Year's resolutions," Gonzalez said.

The seven "deadly sins" used as a basis for the study were anger and hatred, jealousy, excesses and vices, avarice,  lust, vanity and laziness.

Violent crimes, sex offences, bullying and suicide went under the "anger and hatred" heading.

The five cities with the most violent crimes were St Louis, Detroit, Birmingham, Memphis, and Milwaukee.

In the "lust" category, decided by the number of sex shops, Tinder users and teen birth rates, Las Vegas was top, followed by Portland, Atlanta, Tampa, and Honolulu. The extent of adultery in the cities was worked out from numbers who used an online dating service for married people.

Salt Lake City in Utah had the highest charitable donations as percentage of income but also most thefts per person. A large number of Salt Lake City residents also used plastic surgeons.