LAS VEGAS — The top tourism official in Las Vegas says the city hasn’t priced out regular travelers, even as July visitor counts fell and casinos took in more from gamblers.
Steve Hill, CEO of the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority (LVCVA), said monthly figures can bounce around but argued the destination remains competitive at different price points.
“We’re not happy with the downturn but the city’s taking steps to address that,” Hill told reporters Friday.
Vegas used to be a pretty cheap destination for a vacation that saw a ton of profit from the sheer amount of people that funneled there.
It used to be that you would sometimes get buffet and drinks comped if you spent enough time gambling, and that incentive would keep you in that casino continuing to gamble instead of going to a different place. The cost of a buffet meal and a couple highballs was a small price to pay to keep someone at the tables for another couple hours.
Now(within the last 15 years), Vegas is leaning away from being the worldwide gambling destination and leaning more into fine dining and live shows. This has changed the entire economy there and everything is crazy expensive if you’re anywhere near the strip.
This is all to say nothing about the drop in tourism in general because you might just get assaulted when you enter the country by some twat from ICE if your skin is darker than a hotel towel.
Vegas never interested me but I have friends who have talked about that shift. Even going somewhere other than a casino, food and entertainment used to be a bargain compared to other vacation destinations, including restaurants that were started by well known chefs. Now everything is at a premium, even more so than other places.
The cheap food and entertainment serves a purpose though. The underlying game Vegas plays with your psychology is to try to make you feel rich. If they can make the average person feel wealthy by giving them free drinks or letting them stay in a nice room, then they are more likely to spend big in the casino. All the marketing is designed around this too. Keep this in mind if you ever end up in Vegas. I was never really into Vegas myself until I went and learned the history. I can see the charm of it, I just don’t get carried away.
Alcohol removes inhibitions, so drunk people gamble more. No need to make them feel rich too.
Casino operators literally say it out loud:
“If you wanna get rich, make little people feel like big people… good food cheap, good whiskey cheap, and a good gamble. That’s all there is to it, son.” - Benny Binion
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/lasvegas-binion/
apparently you are paying luxury prices, for basic cheap food.
Yup, the casino used to subsidize a lot of things. In all honesty you can still get free drinks but the threshold had climbed to where 20 bucks in the slots got you drinks to I don’t even know what now.
There are regulars who gets comped rooms, but it’s all based how much you gamble every year. So not a bargain.
The concept of rich fucks subsidizing non-rich like me was definitely a dying culture and now it sounds like this is completely dead. So yeah no way I’m paying full prices at Vegas - getting a good deal was the only point of travelling all the way to the middle of nowhere.
vegas has been declining for the better part of the decade, covid+ tariffs/trump is just the final symptom before vegas completely fails. vegas think it can save itself by putting all the "sports’ stadiums in the city. they kinda knew thier industry is dying.