Las Vegas has changed, and not for the better

The year was 1988. I had just finished my undergraduate studies and had a bit of spending money to thanks to still living at home and working summer jobs. I loved gambling even then, but the only legal forms of betting in North America were horse racing, lotteries, Nevada, Atlantic City and riverboat casinos in states I was never going to visit. So I stuck to horse racing, the occasional lottery ticket and my local bookie. I really never considered any of the other options until my best friend suggested we should take a trip to Las Vegas. He opened the travel section of the newspaper and in there were advertisement for three and 4 day junkets to Sin City for as little as $99 for the cheapest hotels. For that price you got a return flight, hotel stay and a $25 credit each that could be used for food or shows. As a 23-year-old the idea of Vegas fascinated me as I’d heard so much about it so I didn’t hesitate to agree. So we booked a 3-night vacation and paid an extra $150 to stay at the Flamingo, which at the time was a fabulous 4-star hotel.

Vegas before the corporations

It didn’t take long to realize why Vegas was such a great destination. The neon lights, the fabulous resort casinos and the constant ringing of bells and the sound of coins falling from the slot machines was quite thrilling. The hotel was as spectacular as advertised, the view to Caesars Palace across the street was breathtaking, and the temperature was perfect – we went in late spring. As well it was clear that food and drinks were really cheap throughout Las Vegas to entice visitors to go their casino to gamble and get rewarded for the efforts. Everywhere were signs for 99 cent breakfast buffets, $2.99 lunch buffets and $4.99 dinner buffets. Shrimp cocktails were available for 99 cents at almost every hotel and places like Westward Ho and the Holiday Inn had steak dinners listed for just $4. These weren’t Ponderosa-style sirloins, either, but actual New York strip steaks that would cost upwards of $20 or more if it wasn’t Vegas. Walking down the street, everyone was friendly and the hotel staff couldn’t be more pleasant or helpful. Even the "seedy side" of Vegas was somewhat hidden although obvious. Newspaper boxes had ads for the brothels in Nye County and guaranteed a limo would pick you up in 20 minutes or your trip to the cathouse would be free. Even pizza deliveries only guaranteed service in 30 minutes. We didn’t have interest in a brothels, but it was nice that the sex industry in Vegas, though well known, was not in your face.

We walked down the strip which wasn’t as long as it is today since the only hotel out by the airport was the Tropicana and it seemed so far away we just stuck to the area from Bally’s to Circus Circus. We didn’t venture downtown at that time. In one casino I put down a $5 chip at a blackjack table and won. I then won more and increased my bets until I was playing almost $100 a hand. The pit boss came up to me and my friend and asked if we needed a room for the night. We responded no because we were staying at a nicer place so he offered us two free show tickets instead which we took. He also gave us a free steak dinner for the night. It didn’t take long to understand why gamblers flocked to Vegas. Even though you would almost certainly lose money over the course of the trip, you were considered an important individual and they treated you like a king, knowing that next time you would stay and play at their casino. In the end I lost about $1,000 on the trip but it was the best vacation I ever had.

Change was starting 

I went back with other friends the following year and then with a cousin in 1991. By that time things were changing slightly. The number of signs for cheap buffets and shrimp cocktails were far less than just three years prior, but most telling was that the pit bosses had less authority. Instead of a pit boss closely monitoring your play, you were issued an electronic card that determined how much you were betting and comps were less than before. I played as much as I did in my first visit and it didn’t even raise an eyebrow of the pit boss. Instead of it being up to the subjective decisions of pit bosses and management, the amount you wagered as determined by the player’s card was more important. Also, the seediness was becoming more apparent. The newspaper boxes were gone and instead people shoved brochures for the brothels at you as you walked by and the prostitutes inside the casino were far more evident. It was also clear that the city was hoping to become more family friendly as themed hotels like the Excalibur and MGM Grand were starting to be built near the Tropicana and there were hints that Vegas wanted more families, believing that was the way to success. Still, it was a great trip and I looked forward to the next vacation to the city.

Massive changes in just 20 years

The following year I got married and had a family so Vegas had to be put off for quite a while. It wasn’t until the mid 2010s for a G2E conference that I next visited Vegas and by that time things had really changed. Vegas was now completely corporate and the cheap buffets and steak dinners as well as $5 tables and craps offering 20x odds were gone. Smaller smaller quaint but fun casinos like Little Caesars, the Riviera and the Westward Ho were a thing of the past and Sheldon Adelson had turned the Sands into the Venetian and Palazzo while Wynn had bought out the land of the Desert Inn and created two large casinos. Furthermore MGM expanded greatly as the Dunes had become the Bellagio, City Center was the big deal at the time and the end of the strip near the airport was all MGM casinos. And things that made Vegas what it was, like keno runners and skimpily dressed cocktail waitresses were nowhere to be seen. Also sportsbooks were now large horse racing and sports betting theaters and the betting experience just wasn’t the same. What was most clear was that Vegas was becoming a place for the big rollers and while there were still some incentives for smaller bettors they were far fewer. Also by this time, the city gave up on its plan to make it a family destination and instead encouraged young people not to come and launched its famous "What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas" campaign. I can still recall the trucks driving by Caesars Palace at night with rotating signs offering prostitutes to your room and people on loudspeakers encouraging horny men to come by. I just shook my head.

The New Las Vegas 

My next visit wasn’t until two years ago when my wife and I decided to go as empty nesters since she had never been to Vegas . . . and we had the time of our lives. We went to three shows, the aquarium at Mandalay Bay, took a bus tour to the Hoover Dam, walked the strip, saw the Bellagio flower garden and dancing waters, and we went to a Las Vegas Knights hockey game. What we didn’t do a lot of was gambling.

The tables were just too expensive with minimum blackjack bets being $50 a hand, despite it being a weekday and the offseason, and blackjack now paid 6-5 odds instead of 3-2 odds as had been the tradition and dealers hit on all soft 17s meaning the odds were really against the bettor. And since almost every hotel was now owned by either MGM, Caesars, LVSC or Wynn there was no place to find cheaper tables. Other games like Let It Ride, High Card Flush, etc. were few and far between and most of the tables that operated were baccarat and Pai Gow tiles which just didn’t interest me, not to mention the table minimums were obscenely high. Slot machines took up almost all the space but popular slots were filled as were the penny or nickel machines. My wife loves slots but she noted how she could play online for hours for the amount she would have to put in the machines for a few minutes and at home she didn’t have to deal with smoke being blown in her face. She also said all her favorite slots were online so she knew they would be available. So if we gambled for two hours for the 6 days we were there, I’d be surprised.

As for restaurants we went to P.F. Changs, The Olive Garden, and Denny’s for breakfast one day and one night to Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen at Caesars Palace. My wife wanted to try the buffets but there were few left and when we tried to book the buffet at Caesars Palace we were told that needed to be done weeks in advance since they were filled up and being there in April we should have booked it around Christmas. As for the Bellagio the skip the line booking wasn’t available so we would have had to wait in line but when we got there at 4 p.m. the line was hours long so we just went to regular restaurants instead. We tried to book the MGM Grand Brunch Buffet as well but it was only available on certain days that we already had plans, so the only buffet we could book was a brunch buffet at the Excalibur which was mediocre at best, despite waiting over 90 minutes in line to get in, and I said to my wife "this certainly isn’t the Vegas I knew and loved."

Last of the buffets

So it really had me shaking my head when I read this week that the MGM Grand buffet is set to close next month. And I have it on good authority that MGM is reconsidering the buffets at Excalibur and the Cosmopolitan as well. If that happens there will be only two buffets left on the strip. I understand that buffets are likely loss leaders despite the fact that a brunch buffet at Excalibur and MGM Grand is $33 on weekdays and $39 on weekends, while the Cosmopolitan brunch buffet is about $50 on weekdays and $55 on weekends, a far cry from the days of the $2.99 brunch buffets when I first started going to Vegas. But it had me asking myself, what advantage there is anymore to go to Vegas?

Cheap food was a huge draw, but is clearly now a thing of the past. We had a $50 hotel credit given to us and for that we got 2 bottles of water, 2 slices of pizza and a bottle of Perrier. Moreover, poker rooms which were always a huge draw are being closed except for professionals who play with limits that are completely out of reach for most of the general public, and rooms are expensive and have hefty resort fees attached to them. To sit at a pool one needs to rent a cabana and pay upwards of $100 for a couple of hours, and free drinks are only available while at the slots or tables. If you want to bet on sports you can usually just bet in your own state or province or go to the next one since sports betting is legal in 39 states and Washington D.C., as well as all of Canada and Mexico. And while only eight states and all of Canada have legal online casino wagering, that number is expected to increase dramatically in the next year or two plus most states have their own land-based casinos with far more incentives for customers that Vegas has. As an example, while I don’t go to casinos very often, I keep getting free show tickets and hotel stay offers at two Ontario casinos, MGM in Springfield, MA, MGM Grand in Detroit and the Seneca casinos in Western New York. I’m also being offered free bet credits everywhere and this is despite the fact I can count on one hand I went to any of them in the last year. But I can’t recall ever getting any similar offers sent to me by casinos in Vegas in recent years although in after my three visits from 1988 to 1991 I received tons of mail with free offers including one offer for a hotel that agreed to pay for my flight, 2 shows, all meals and $100 back in cash if I stayed there and played eight hours of $5 blackjack during the stay. Not even whales betting thousands would get those types of offers anymore. To get noticed you would need to drop at least 6 figures.

I understand that Vegas is struggling these days as visits from popular destinations like Canada, Europe and Asia are way down due to political reasons, and I realize Vegas is seeing stiff competition from online sports and casino wagering, but as the old proverb goes if you want to catch more fish, use more hooks. The proverb you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar also applies. As someone who worked in marketing for years, including helping online casinos and sportsbooks attract new customers, it always mesmerizes me how businesses these days always look first for ways to cut costs when they face pressure rather than figuring out ways to increase revenue. As much as I love the casinos in Ontario, New York and Massachusetts, they aren’t Vegas. And while Atlantic City is closer to me than Nevada, it will also never be Vegas. If Vegas wants to survive it needs to get back to being the tourist destination it once was. And this can be done with baby steps, including opening more buffets rather than closing the few that are still there because cheap buffets is one of the things that made Vegas and is one thing that will attract visitors from all demographics. Similarly, rather than having a slew of empty $50 or $100 tables, add some $10 tables to attract the average bettor. And more importantly make it somewhat family friendly by adding more non-smoking areas and ask prostitutes not to go up to men who are clearly there with someone else if they want a date. That’s not a “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas” thing. It’s just creepy.

So it brings me back to the original question I was asking, "What does Vegas really have to offer anymore that can’t be done online or with other destinations?" If I was a 20 or 30 something I wouldn’t have an answer. But having experienced the Vegas of the past I know what that answer is and it’s that is that Las Vegas is a destination that can’t be duplicated no matter how hard other places try. The question is whether Vegas is willing to take a step back to the past and regain that excitement or whether it prefers to feel sorry for itself, do nothing and hope things eventually change for the better? It will be too bad if the answer is the latter.

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