For those of you who don’t frequent the LVA forums, here’s what Joe K had to say about a recent passage through the casino community on the banks of the Colorado River: "Laughlin is in scary shape right now. The casinos (the ones I walked through with my brother, at least) looked two-thirds empty. According to my brother, the residents are starting to chatter amongst themselves that the whole town might go under. He also opined that things will likely get much worse when Don Laughlin passes away (which can't be too far off at this point.)"
Rumors of the city of Laughlin’s death are always greatly exaggerated but the place is definitely hurting, although it hasn’t suffered nearly as badly as Mesquite or Primm. Both fly-in and drive-in traffic for 2010 were up through September (9% and 6%, respectively) but stay-over and midweek customers appear to be fewer in number. Hotel occupancy is running at 64%, slightly worse than 2009 – even with fewer hotel rooms in circulation -- but convention attendance is down a whopping 36%.
Although gamblers have tightened their purse strings a bit, reducing casino revenue by 4%, the city has still pulled in $369 million during the first nine months of the year. Another bit of good news is that, on average, September was Laughlin’s best month of 2010 -- using the measurements employed by the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority, such as hotel occupancy and total number of visitors.
We wish Don Laughlin, the city’s founding father, the best of health. However, he is but one casino owner out of many in Laughlin. Others include Carl Icahn, Tilman Fertitta, Caesars Entertainment, and Goldman Sachs, which means that some pretty heavy hitters in the casino industry are confident in Laughlin’s future.
