We continue to watch what's happening in Las Vegas with great interest and horrified expressions. There's also a little sense of "It was obvious this was going to happen." Grosses are down everywhere, an awful lot of hotel rooms that should be filled this time of year are not, and rumors abound of existing hotels closing or planned ones being unplanned. This will surely drive the Unemployment Numbers — already the highest in the nation — further into pain-filled levels and banking agencies have reported a record number of residents behind on their rent or mortgage payments.
Perhaps the best indicator that something is wrong is that all the airlines that fly to and from Vegas are cutting back on flights. According to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, the rest of 2025 will see an average of 95,000 fewer seats to Vegas each day than there were at this time last year. For a town whose industry is built around The Tourist Trade, that's just devastating.
I've written here about visitors staying away due to the ghastly price-gouging…and Vegas experts have taken to referring to what's happened to prices there as "The Gouge." I should have also mentioned what The Man Called Trump is doing to tourism in this country, especially driving away tourists from Canada. That's one of the reason all the economic indicators are way, way down. Unfortunately, while prices in Vegas are dropping, they've got long way to go before they'll make things more attractive.
One other interesting trend in Vegas: A lot of casinos are cutting back on — and a few are eliminating altogether — table games. Those are the games like Blackjack, Roulette, Craps and others that depend on the presence on a casino employee who must be paid. I'm sure those games will never disappear from the city but they're disappearing from some smaller casinos and the big ones are opting for more poker and slot machines.
There was a time not so long ago when going to Dealer School and getting your diploma to preside over those games was about as close to a "guaranteed to always have a good job" job as you could have in the state of Nevada. Not so these days. Can the robot Elvis Impersonators and hookers be far behind?