Do you need correct change for the stalls in the boy's room, or is there a toilet cashier?

There is a city tax on parking in AC, but that doesn't mean casinos can't make it free for their customers. It is pretty much free any place where you have something higher than the lowest statuts player's card. And it is free for everyone at Golden Nugget.

It works for the strip clubs.

fallout new vegas?

Of course Caesars will follow. They'll take an initial 'no parking fees here' stance, make some extra coin from slightly increased revenue, then see a few quarters of MGM and realize they need parking fees to keep the lights on for a few more years.

I think everyone who cheered on politicians defending corporate inversions should rewatch clips of politicians using the phrase "fiduciary responsibility to their shareholders" before saying "greed" like it's a bad thing.

Plus ...

youdontsay.jpg

If I will have to play $25 to park and play a 5 hour low stakes poker session its automatically -$5/hr for my hourly. No thanks. As I tourist I would have never given a **** b/c I never took a car to Vegas. If I did my once a year trips would not be affected that amount. 25 extra bucks to go see a concert on top of already outrageous ticket fees will be doubtful as well. This is pretty much a screw the locals policy, but they probably don't care about them anyways.

Surprised its taken this long honestly. I dont know how many spaces there are in the garage but lets say its 1,000 for math purposes. $20 per spot, figure a handful of turnovers or people going in/out - so they're getting 2x per spot per day for some spots, $30,000 per day x 365 - = @ $10M. Rough numbers, but give or take.

Thats basically free money to them. Put that across the 12 garages they run? Granted the other garages are much smaller. But I could see how a guy with a spreadsheet in front of him with all the garage/spot math multiplied out could decide this is a good idea. And in a time when they are struggling, like I said, surprised it took this long.

Personally in 25 or so trips I've never once rented a car and it got me wondering what % of tourists that come out do rent a car? Even if they did this I just dont see it affecting business all that much. People will not like it but they will pay.

I go to Vegas about twice a year and always rent a car. I have parked at the MGM a couple of times because of its location and while walking through the casino I usually throw in a couple of $20's in VP but will no longer do so if they implement this parking fee.

Does anyone think there would likely be validation or something for poker players? Seems like this would seriously hurt the Bellagio room, maybe some others.

I would be shocked if they're charging something like $20 a pop. There's just no way that would fly. You can't compare Vegas hotel to random hotel in another city where they do charge $20+ a night for their guests to park. Most of the drivers parking and staying at the hotel are from Southern California. In LA, one would NEVER pay anything like that for parking. Parking is much cheaper and much more plentiful in LA than it is in most major cities. It would be massive sticker shock and even the tone-deaf MGM morons should recognize that.

I figure this would be more like the Golden Nugget model (or the model for any mall on the west side of LA). $5 for the first few hours, a buck or so per hour after, can validate for most of it at the players club. Will be free for gold and above or something and they'll crow about what a wonderful amenity that is, even though it was always free. They're not going to just charge a flat $20 like you're going to a ball game, or like they would in a casino town with a completely different parking economy (New Orleans, Chicago, Cleveland).

And to the locals saying it will kill locals business: I'd posit that they don't give a flying **** about that.

Now let's wait a bit and see how completely wrong I have all of the above.

If a parking charge happens I optimistically agree with eco74 here.

Is there other evidence that this may happen other than the article linked in OP? Does anyone know how reliable that website might be?

MGM has put the conference call on their website. You can listen to it if you're interested enough.

WRT the possibility of the fee being $20, that's high compared to typical Vegas prices, but then several years ago if someone told you Vegas hotels could get away with charging daily $35 resort fees on top of the room charges you would have said that was insane. It's altogether typical for parking to cost $40 and above in San Francisco. Even in hotels that you're a paying guest at. So $20 may sound crazy now, but if every other hotel follows suit, as they did with resort fees, it's well within possibility.

CET won't hold out if MGM does it. They don't want Bellagio, etc visitors filling up the Ballys/Paris and PHo parking garages. Or Venetian visitors filling up Harrah's.

is this in the conference call?

If I were ceasars I'd let mgm do it and see if/how much it helps revenues in the ceasars casinos and go from there.

As for $40 in san franscisco this isn't SF Vegas has plenty of parking available.

Be interesting to see how this plays out.

This doesn't make sense. A company hurting for money needs to find a way to bring in additional revenue, so they decide to reduce the likelihood someone would drive into their parking garage?

Between this and banning DFS...

IMO if all 12 of their properties did this it would have near zero effect on the number of visitors. 99.99% of Joe Tourists wouldn't care one lick about another $10 or $20 per day in charges on their vacation to Vegas. Would it affect daily locals poker players - maybe - but also as stated, they just wont care, the few players they might lose would affect their overall bottom line not at all.

Initially in the first couple of weeks people might park at CET properties but I think if MGM does this it would take CET no time at all to jump in. Because 1 - the money and 2 - as stated, they dont want their garage full of visitors to other properties.

Old enough to remember when the argument was that the hotel rooms had to be remain cheap or nobody would come to Las Vegas. Remember when the restaurant's had to be cheap to eat or nobody would come. Not surprised at all to see them charge for parking. Just about guaranteed that you'll be able to spend your points to pay for the parking. Within two years, people will be posting that getting double credit for their points for parking is a sweet deal.

A bean counter spent 30 minutes figuring out how to drain comps.

I thought Horseshoe didn't own the garage you park in.

I guess not. The Profit Growth Initiative was in the conference call but according to the article, this parking thing is a new part of it, told to the author by a super-secret inside source.

O'rly? Where? If every Strip hotel charges for parking, where is this "plenty"? SF has "plenty" also, it just isn't free.

I don't generate $20 in points per day at any one casino. Or even in all casinos combined.

This could be a big windfall for uber drivers.

Should get fired then for not coming up with it earlier.

I do think as the countries economy has led to a huge lower/poor class and a small upper class and no middle class the Vegas model changed. It was getting tons of people to come and each lose a bit. Someone realized that if people are coming to Vegas looking for bargains they aren't adding to the profit. Instead, the model is to focus on those with lots of disposable income and gouge them for all they can.

we talked about this a little in another thread but pretty much this. the Las Vegas CBS station did a piece about this topic on Friday. No one from MGM would comment, but they did talk to a Clark County Commissioner who is privy to what is going on. He said that the charging for parking would just be for when events are going on at the new arena and not everyday.

Charging for special events is not unprecedented. I know the Westgate charges to park in the parking garage when there are big conventions at the LV Convention Center.