Two recent hints that Vegas demand might be softening?

Station Casinos ( dining deals ) and all-3:2 payoffs at the Palms blackjack games are fairly strong indicators that Vegas consumer demand might be softening a bit. Also five of the last six months ( 2024) of gaming revenue declines points to reduced demand as well, despite record positive revenues for December 2024 in Vegas. All these indicators have been addressed in LVA news pages, including the recent newsletter.

Maybe these indicators  signal a slight trend that these resorts will begin to slowly reintroduce some value for customers..albeit likely tempered and more common at off-Strip locales vs the Strip. We can hope.

Yeah, perhaps, but I remember the effect of the Dubya recession and the oh, so very, very brief--six months at most?--period where there were good deals to be had, then after Obama took office and the recovery started, that was the real slash-and-burn time for the casinos--as if they were trying to recover that revenue they felt they deserved. That was the time when deals everywhere really went in the crapper, and good games--+EV VP, good BJ--started becoming extinct.

Andrew's editorial in the March newsletter expresses the same hope you do. I wish I could be as optimistic, but the savage and rapid way the casinos took advantage of the post-covid environment, and their almost unbelievable recent propensity to gouge, make me doubt that they're going to change their mindsets in any significant way.

Remember, despite the immediate nature of all the gouging, there has been a long game in play for some time. The casinos now have a customer base that thinks that $20 to park is normal, resort fees are perfectly normal, a blackjack pays 6 to 5 ("my grandpa tells me it used to pay 3 to 2"), and $350 a night to stay in a box with a bed and a toilet is just swell. Not to mention the ghastly price of meals, transportation, etc. etc. etc.

Now, yes, some enlightened soul may realize that offering bargains actually increases the bottom line. Twenty years ago, every casino suit with a brain knew that. But those people are gone, replaced by bright-eyed, wet behind the ears MBAs who think that every single element of the operation, down to and including the hand sanitizer dispensers, has to make a profit.

On Miles to Memories Vegas they discussed the January results, it looks like the Strip had its 2nd best month ever, up 22.45% though visitors were down 1.1%.  Maybe a giant whale lost a chunk, who knows.

I wouldn't say Vegas is dying, there are still plenty of dumb players on the Strip paying too much for too little and playing terrible odds.

But that's not really sustainable in the long run. They used to understand that you shear the sheep, you don't slaughter them. Now, they just pillage everyone without restraint or remorse. People who get gouged and scammed at every turn won't be back next year--sometimes, not ever.

What happens in Vegas stays on your credit card statement. And you get less and less fun from a Vegas vacay, and you lose more, than ever before. There are still deals and bargains out there, for now at least, but I consider maybe 5% of Vegas still playable or worth visiting. Certainly, when the temps hit 100 in Vegas (any day now), my gambling trips will be to Reno/Tahoe.

I think the only thing keeping their revenues afloat is that their long game is working: there's a huge, undifferentiated mass of rubes out there who think that all the gouging is normal and just shrug it off. What's going to be the death blow is Trumpflation and the coming Turd Depression. Ain't nobody gonna want to play $50 BJ and go have a $300 steak dinner, then return to their $500 room.

"Ain't nobody gonna want to play $50 BJ and go have a $300 steak dinner, then return to their $500 room."

You are describing the Strip for the last 4 years, not sure how that has changed in a month.

What's changed is available deals (much fewer), frequency of the highest prices (much more often), and nickel-and-dime "extra" fees and surcharges and taxes (exponentially worse). But if you reread my sentence, you'll see that I'm referring to the near future. Vegas has been benefiting from a very strong economy, so people have been choking down the gouging, but that will all change once people no longer have the money (or want to spend the money) for those $28 hamburgers and $12 beers.