In all honesty I think it's corporate America just doing it's thing. I work for a large company and they spend a lot of time and money trying to find the optimal way to run every part of the business.

I don't mean just being frugal along the way and doing things right in the eyes of the stock holders, I mean squeezing every penny out of every situation and they using those pennies to pay a consulting firm to come in and find more pennies.

Vegas is just corporate America sucking the fun out of, well, everything.

It started at the Mirage in the 1980's when the bean counters would not allow the poker bar to serve one celery and two olives in a drink. The player had to take either the celery or the olive, not both.

As soon as the Bellagio opened all the poker guys voted with their feet and never went back. Today's Mirage poker room is only a shadow of what it once was.

When the Wynn started charging for parking last year, and you went to eat at one of the restaurants, you could ask the valet for validation and they would say "ask the restaurant" - and when you asked the restaurant, they would say "ask the valet".

When I wrote to the Wynn and never got an answer, I voted with my feet too.

Yes,they eventually fixed that, but they can take their resort fee and their parking fee and put it down the hole, so to speak, I'm not the only vacationer/tourist who isn't going back there.

Times sure have changed since Boyd and the California Club actually wanted to make visiting Las Vegas fun for the customer. Captive audiences yearn for freedom and don't remain captive, nobody likes being taken advantage of.

Someone who agrees to pay that $30,000,000 an acre for the available strip acreage is going to learn that the hard way.

Probably both, AND probably casinos wanting to maximize shareholder return.

I still look forward to going every year, but I only go once a year.

Cost of holidays has been a double whammy, with the dollar strengthening so much against the pound.

I'm only going for a couple weeks next year, instead of the 4 I've done for the last 3 summers, though.

They have casinos?!


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This very thought has been circulating around in the back of mind.

2018 is the first year since I turned 21 i havnt made the trip from Ireland. Hotel fees, house edge, general 'sucking every penny out of you' has taken a lot of the fun out of it for me.... I'm only 29

Agreed with the general theme of this thread. Every time I go back, I am less impressed than the previous time. Worse odds, more hotel fees. It's pretty obvious from a consumer standpoint why it is getting worse, but the corporations are blind and only starting to realize how bad they messed up what was once a gold mine. Time will tell if they can recover. If they keep screwing consumers in attempt to make short-term quarterly goals, it will continue to be a vicious cycle of raising rates and turning more tourists off from ever coming back again.

I've been going to Vegas each year since 2008. I did not go in 2017 even though I got a comp for 3 free nights at Mirage. I guess the novelty wore off and I saw Vegas for what it really is....A fake city with lots of lights design to separate you from your money.

I went back to Vegas this year with a friend, using that 3 free night comp during WSOP. We stayed for a week, but I was already thinking of the returning flight after 2 days. And to think in my younger years that this was my retirement destination.

One thing that Vegas is always good at is having plenty of hot women walking around. But as a recently married man, staring at them does nothing for me.

Yes....all of the above. Wife and I are in LV 6x a year.

Vegas is on a path towards what Atlantic City became. Now...I'm not predicting the same outcome- one hopes there is a bit of a learning curve that has recognized that. But, you see it in the poker rooms especially- consolidation, the big get bigger, the small ones get out and out of the way. The economies of scale do make it unprofitable and less desirable to maintain and run a small, say 8-10 table poker room. Not when you own a solid mile or two of the strip, and can tell your customers that "yes, we have poker available next door.." at Aria, fr'instance, instead of the small room at Monte Carlo-Park.

At the same time, Vegas may have hit the sweet spot of business/customer retention. Many of the complaints lodged here are quite legitimate but can be responded to by "once your tier/player level increases, many of the charges you faced will go away".
I don't pay for parking, and usually don't face resort fees- both wife and I are Platinum CET and Gold/Platinum at MGM. We get mostly comped rooms, save for the busy weekends at Bellagio, etc. We stayed at Red Rock last fall for her birthday, and they've sent use a free days wipe-out calendar every quarter since.

And yet, I play mostly poker- so I've got a spouse who does most of the desired gaming, from the corporate standpoint. So I truly empathize here. But these are just simple business decisions. And here is the decision- Make the lower gross paying customer shoulder the "fairshare" cost of doing business, because the higher gross paying customer has paid their "fairshare" within their total spending and gaming.

Couple that with international travelers, the corporate and trade show business, and the baseline corporation/stockholder mentality, and LV is doing just fine, with or without 1-3 and 2-5 NL grinders.

I truly wonder what the "key in the door" cost-out is for a place like Bellagio or Caesars Palace on a day to day basis is. I'll never know, but that is their business. But rest assured, every person who runs a business better know that number, or they are out of business real fast. The three businesses I've owned, I knew that number, by heart

I think now there are only Four (4) states that have NO legal gaming left. So, what hollowed out Atlantic City has actually had a far less effect in LV. Sadly, the answer has been to make the low-gross customer pay more.

I think the corporation mentality and the monopoly-like atmosphere hurts. Caesars and MGM practically run the whole town which cuts down on competition. In the old days you had colorful guys like Benny Binion and the "Polish Maverick" Bob Stupak who came up with great deals and offbeat promotions that made things interesting and made you feel like you were getting a bargain.

Wait a minute .......... How about building a poker-only hotel casino ?

I have been on 37 Vegas trips, going as much as 10+ times a year over the last few. I still love the place but I have to sadly admit Its not quite the same thrill as it used to be.

With all of the changes, resort fee's, tightening of comps, charging for drinks/parking even when gambling it really puts a sour taste in your mouth, especially if its a losing trip.

In the past even if I lost big I would not think of it as too big of a deal, as I had a comped room, free meals and was treated great. The strip is changing in a negative way and I really only enjoy the Fremont old Vegas area now.

If you are getting tires of Las Vegas, here's an idea - try betting the dont's! It gives you a whole new perspective on things.

Vegas is actually trying the exact opposite because they don’t want to end up like AC.

Everyone has a casino in driving distance and gambling isn’t a big difference maker anymore. So the Strip resorts in Vegas focus on things that most tourists can’t get that easily at home and that’s entertainment, dining, retail and party.

There are a million options in the US to play slots but there aren’t that many places where you can go to multiple Michelin star restaurants, see various Cirque shows, listen to top DJ talent at pools and nightclubs and shop at Louis Vuitton, Gucci and Prada on a single weekend. All in walking distance from your hotel room. That’s what Vegas is about for tourists and conventioneers now.

The bottom line seems to be that for every middle-aged customer that loses interest, enough new 21 yr-olds will arrive to replace.

Neither do I, but for me it actually led me to stop going downtown and betting at Boyd properties. I have more than enough points there to be their new Titanium tier many times over, but one week of paid parking caused me to never visit there again.

Day 1) Stand in line behind five people for ~15 minutes until they are able to validate my ticket.

Day 2) Huge line at the validation desk, I was told you can do it at the cashier so I tried that. Cashier at MSS tells me since I parked in a lot that belongs to the California (even though they're the same company and the lot is actually labeled Main Street Station (This lot: https://www.google.com/maps/uv?hl=en...oiowCnoECAoQCQ) she can't validate it. Have to stand in long line again, get validated after ~15 minutes + the 10 minutes or so talking to the cashier.

Day 3) Decide to park in California deck and get validated at California. Easy process to get validated. Go to exit the parking deck, validation didn't work and the machine asks me to pay $12. Just pay the $12 because I don't feel like going back inside.

Day 4) Repeat of Day 3. -$12

Day 5) Repeat of Day 3 and 4 except this time I decide to go back inside and get it validated. Cashier says sorry and validates it. It's not validated. I go back inside (now we're at ~30 minutes of this hassle). She calls a security guard. The security guard asks me if I gambled here today. I said I'm onyx (at the time their invite only premiere card) and entitled to free parking. The security guard insists that I must gamble or he can't validate my parking. I point out the sign we are standing next to that says free parking validation for sapphire or higher card holders. Point out that I am sapphire or higher. He then relents, gives me a ticket that will just let me out without validating, and says he's doing me a favor and next time I need to gamble or they won't validate. FWIW I was gambling, but that wasn't the point so I didn't bring it up.

And since that day I have not returned downtown or to any Boyd casino.

According to my records since 2007 I've bet an average of 3.3 million dollars a year at Boyd properties on horse racing. The typical cut a casino gets on horse racing is around 10% (it varies across track and bet type, but a 10% average is close to the amount), risk free. They literally get 10% for just taking the bet and providing TVs with the feeds. Also it's not like I'm comp whoring them. My comp balance at Boyd is nearing a quarter million dollars and I rarely spend any of it because I don't like any of their restaurants (and comps earned through horse racing can't be converted to free play). I don't even take them up on the free $10 slot play they offer me every quarter.

So even if you don't pay with money, you pay in other ways (time, hassle). Even if Boyd offered free parking now I will never return to any of their casinos as a result.

It's hard to have a good time in Vegas for cheap. Overpriced food. Resort fees.

I thought the idea of the town was to lure people in with cheap food and rooms so they'd gamble it all back on the tables. Now it just feels like every casino wants to sell the luxury experience. Places like Aria and Wynn show the new direction. Retail space is stuffed with overpriced fashion brand crap. $30 pasta buffets. Expensive everything.

They're not selling value. They're selling the feeling of being a baller.

It was ... back in the 1960s.

Things have changed a lot in the past 50 years.

Only difference is today's young people are broke AF for the most part and with inflation, the Vegas "experience" is 4-5x more expensive than it was 30 years ago. Today's "20 somethings", unless they're poker players aren't gambling. They're coming to Vegas to take selfies, eat In-N-Out, hook up on Tinder, and pooling their money together for $100+ club admission & 1 bottle for 6 guys. Basically, the same thing they can do in any big city with a bunch of resort fees added on. The 20 somethings that do have money and are in Vegas are mostly during conference season & real big events like EDC. Their extra money goes to the restaurants (all serving the same lol, Sysco) and strip clubs. Their dads and the last of the degens are the only ones still in the pits.

Edit: The high end luxury shopping is there strictly for advertising. Every luxury brand store you see in Vegas is a Million Dollar a month loss leader for the company. I've worked temp assignments for a luxury brand staffing agency and out of the 20-25 days of the assignments, I might have witnessed 4 or 5 transactions.

To wrap it up, Vegas is one big iHeartRadio/E!-Network commercial, selling you American pop culture. I don't blame people for being tired of it.

Wow; talk about dumb business practices. You would think they would have counter-measures for a new parking system; to prevent losing a customer of your standard.

Las Vegas regulars since 2000, with no plans of cutting back on our three month per year residency.

Yes, Vegas has changed, and so has the rest of the World.

At the beginning of this millennium, most Americans had very limited access to live card room poker. Playing live poker regularly was exclusively for the pros, and maybe for a few wealthy degens and broke bums.

I remember ecstatic posts on this forum, before the boom, spurred by nothing more than a poster having decided to spend a day or two at Foxwoods.

I remember flying to Vegas for WSOP during the top of the boom, on a commercial plane bursting with pro and amateur players, and witnessing an improvised poker tournament unfold in 35,000 feet between the seat rows.

Back then, everybody's excitement was literally palpable. The fact that many posters have developed a blasé attitude toward gambling has likely more to do with how their lives have changed (hint: they got a lot older), than with how the LV hospitality market has developed.

Today, when the vast majority of Americans can find poker & other gambling less than two hours from their homes, there is just less excitement to go around. In fact, this has nothing to do with Las Vegas.

The hatred against resort and parking fees seems largely to be fueled by nitpickers. Hey, if you can calculate pot odds, you can also figure out that the total cost of your stay includes both room charge, local tax, resort fee, and parking charges. If that is too difficult, maybe you shouldn't play poker.

Accommodation, food, and entertainment in LV was a heck of a lot cheaper 18 years ago (and probably even more so 30 years ago). It was also a heck of a lot worse.

Except for the few high end resorts, which btw also were expensive back then, most hotel room were at best average and bland, if not outright unsavory and vermin infested.

Gourmet restaurants were largely unknown on the Strip until the late nineties, and yes, I remember $4 buffets and $5 prime rib dinners ... in coffee shops, that was, and in no way 'high end'.

People throwing quarters in slot machines were treated no better than they are today. Other seasoned posters will confirm. The casinos has always catered to those who substantially contribute to their revenue, and it may have been easier to 'slip under the wire' as advantage player back then compared to now, but that was not what the majority of visitors experienced.

Compared to the big markets (NYC, LA, Chicago, etc.), LV is still an inexpensive place to party. If that is what you want to.

If you'd rather hang on the beach with wife and kids, that's your prerogative.

or you know people who don't like being lied to,scammed and ****ed over.weird bunch.


the reason casinos give out comps is physiological.yea you lost 3000 but here's some free rooms a steak dinner etc. this way people feel better and want to come back. people don't like feeling ripped off and ****ed over- which is exactly what the scam resort fees and parking fees do.

Do you feel betrayed by US corporations?

Until the last Democrat administration moved to regulate the field, airlines did exactly what casino resorts are doing - veiled the true cost of their product in an opaque blur of fees and unavoidable extra charges. Phone service providers, cable and internet providers, and anybody who can get away with it does the same.

People still flew, talked on the phone, and bought cable and internet service.

From a corporate pov, it is not even optional: If you don't do it, the competition does it, and you lose out.

I do not disagree with the view, that the move toward more inscrutable pricing is a negative.

But I do not believe for a second, that these practices affect the overall LV visitor ship notably.

And from my point of view, people who refer to these practices as 'lies', 'scams', '**** overs', and 'rip offs' place themselves solidly in the nitpicker category.

LOL, especially at a crowded table during some shooter's big run....