The Economy & Las Vegas

You're very welcome!

And as for the actual question at hand, I don't think that LV is doing what it can to draw in the Baby Boomers who might be able to more afford to come and play here.

That could be with having more reasonably priced places and restaurants and to make the playing rules and pay schedules to where people might actually have at least a somewhat better chance of winning or to where their playing time can be increased.

Or what could also help might be more advertising for the areas in LV (like Downtown) that offer better rates and better rules/pay schedules.

RecVPPlayer

Pay schedules mean diddly to the average Vegas visitors, who tally in the millions and millions and millions compared to the "savvy" and relative few who inhabit Vegas chatboards. Just doesn't register. And reasonable prices? Vegas remains a steal. See what $69/night gets you in Wailea or New York. And while $500 tasting menus ain't exactly frugal, as seen here folks seems to be pretty happy with stuff from Cheesecake Factory and Ellis Island and the buffet line. Yet there are bazillions of "reasonably priced" eats arrayed all across the valley that don't involve chains or fast food or steam trays.

Where having better pay schedules would matter (what I mean more is having more machines that offer a higher return) is where when having a higher return, players' money is more likely to last longer since at least most people (I think) would prefer to have more playing time for their money than less playing time (where their money might drain at a slower rate than with what casinos are now having for players to play on).
And I definitely do understand that the term "reasonable prices" is relative, but I wonder about people's feelings of value with being connected to being in the Desert as opposed to being by some body of water area.

RecVPPlayer

You're reading way too much into it, David, being as you're a Vegas junkie, an advantage player and a value-seeker. A couple tick increase in EV will not be noticed by a short-term player, and those extra bits of salvation might just be tied to the rare-as-moon-landings top payout. It seems logical but I just don't see it being quantifiable in discrete packages where it would be noticed. You're giving the average lemming turista gambler too much credit. Joan Q from Des Plaines wants to plink away at a slot for a couple hours a day. Even if she gained an extra spin or three, the bottom line is she'll keep feeding 20s until she's reached her limit, however that is defined. And read the demographics reports, they expect to lose. It's too imperceptible. EV only "works" as a mathematical abstraction, and then really only to people who wouldn't be playing those types of games in the first place.

Value? I scored an upgraded room at PHo for an upcoming trip, during a HEAVY convention week, and its cost me 40 bucks/night. You can't get a closet in Kaanapali for that. Or Newport Coast.

Vegas is cheap. Dirt cheap. And it's largest single demographic can drive in.

LOL

Hey, I just had a conversation yesterday with an attorney who lives in LV.

He said, "This is a great time to buy a house in LV. The prices are a steal." LOL

Yeah, right!!!!

Ken,

I know that most people would not know what a pay schedule means but I have read articles even recently saying that what players want is even if they expect to lose, that they get more playing time for their money. That is more likely to come from a "loosened pay schedule" (or from the casino choosing machine chips which offer a higher return).

Even in the American Casino Guide, Steve Bourie has been now for the last at least few years listing what ranges of returns (which are listed by the machine's manufacturers) casinos can choose for the different types of machines (such as "Wizard Of Oz"). And so if casinos were willing to increase the machine's overall return, then players might very well be able to play at least a bit longer than with a lower returning chip.

Or for example with Video Poker, where a player can play on a 9/6 Jacks Or Better machine or an 8/5 Jacks Or Better machine, there is about a 2.25% difference in return between the two games and so playing on the lower pay scheduled game could make a person's money drain at a bit of a faster rate. So I would say that most players would be happier even if they couldn't necessarily win to be able to play for a longer time. That's what a better pay schedule can offer them (although good playing strategy is more likely to help the player as well).

And I'm well aware that room prices for LV are definitely less expensive than a whole lot of places around, but I think that there still comes a point where people will still say that the higher end places just want too much money for Las Vegas -- which may not be as highly valued by some people because in the end, it is in the desert -- as opposed to maybe some tropical locale (so they then may end up voting with their feet).

RecVPPlayer

I like the theory, but practice denies it. If it worked, slots wouldn't own the casino floor and no one would play carnival games like keno and the crazy table games that are proliferating. And I appreciate the math lesson, but when I see supposedly savvy locals playing 7/5 DDB next to a full-pay variant ... Logic has no bearing in this. And you have to separate out your personal desires as an advantage player. Again, you are a rare bird. You do not remotely reflect the typical -- remember, there are 35-38 million of 'em annually -- who flock to Vegas to be fleeced.

Lastly, value and locale. Higher-end Vegas appears to be doing pretty well, all things considered. And that's because of relative value. Wynn is cheap compared to a mid-/lower-market hotel in a more "desirable" location. Vegas, thankfully, doesn't require the type of time and cost expenditures it takes to go tropical. How do you get to Vegas and at what cost? How do you get to Hawaii and at what cost? I'm not saying the place is immune from pricing itself out of existence. I don't think it's there yet. I think in a down economy vacation Vegas -- not gambling Vegas -- gains a step up. Some years back vacation took sway over gamble when it comes to the typical visitor. Anyway, in my 10 or so years here this isn't the first time the idea that Vegas had priced itself into oblivion has been raised. It's kinda evergreen, and I'd guess the lament mostly emanates from longer-tenured visitors who value gambling time and low-cost eats/sleeps.

Ken,

I know that the vast, vast majority of people who play have no idea what a pay schedule is and that even if they did, they still likely wouldn't know what would constitute a good game.

But having said that, I have read articles (I know that there was a link to one within I think the last few months in the FFA Message Board) that said that what players want is more playing time for their money.

Well as far as I know, that will basically only come from the casino putting in more machines which offer a higher return than what they have been using and/or more table games (most specifically Blackjack) with better rules.

I know that the casinos will make more money from having worse returning chips, but then players will play less and maybe even cut down on the number of times that they go to play (which can cost the casino more $ due to having more machines/tables sitting idle).

And even if I wasn't more of an advantage player (or knew about that stuff), I'd certainly prefer that the money that I have (even if I know that I will lose) will last me a longer time than a shorter time because the return on the machines ends up being lower than it could be.

I have asked people who didn't know much of anything casino-wise if they would rather play on a machine that had a better likelihood of allowing them to play with the money that they have for a longer period of time or for a shorter period of time and they have told me that if they had any choice, they would prefer to play longer. Again, playing longer would involve the casino offering a higher return on the machines.

And Slots and Keno offer various pay schedules (at least I know for sure that they do with Video Keno -- I have seen differences in pays for certain numbers of hits even on the same machine at different denominations -- I do not play that game, but I have a friend who does and he has asked me to check out pay schedules when I can).

As I said in an earlier post, in the American Casino Guide, Steve Bourie now lists which kinds of machines offer what ranges of payback chips and I'm sure that players would rather (if they knew that they had at least somewhat of a choice) play on a higher returning machine than a lower returning one.

And as for people and the economy, I know that people may have a lot less disposable income than before to spend on nice and kind of pricey things and so some of the higher end places could fairly easily price themselves out of the market.

RecVPPlayer

Have to side with Ken on this one.

Rec, in the old days of the old 3 reel slots you may have had a point.

But nowadays no need to increase pay back. One substitutes the occassional "bonus" round or cute animations on winning spins and the like. It serves the same purpose, player plays a bit longer and gets entertainment value but no need to increase returns, indeed a good reason to decrease them!

David, I can't imagine anyone, if asked, who would say, "Please, make the machines pay out less." But again, you're going on logic that history simply does not support, nor does the math. What is the abstraction "better odds"? How is it quantified? How does John Q sitting at a 91.4% machine see, feel or know it's not an 89.6 payer? Why isn't he playing the next one over with a chip kicking out at a rate of 95.3%? Since most of EV is tied up in the top events, it simply isn't going to show as hand-to-hand-to-hand variance.

As for higher-end travel, again, what impact? Hypothetically anything could price itself out of the market. Vegas hasn't done that. Hawai'i isn't reeling because nice rooms are $500/night. The tsunami kicked Hawai'i's ass--the tsunami and its impact in/on Japan, that is. And in the 2008-2009 crash, high-end travelers were hardly hit. It's the middling-and-lower crowd that's doing the staycations.

What players would "rather" experience as an abstraction does not manifest itself in casino behavior. It's not needed. You need to separate out straw polls and shopper surveys. Players actions -- frenzied feeding of slots and other carnival games -- belies what those folks are saying.