Caesars Entertainment, owner of the High Roller, hasn’t broken out the cost of the observation wheel from the entire LINQ mall, which set it back $550 million. (The London Eye cost approx. $120 million in today's money, but it had its own distinct construction issues on account of being located on a river bank, so this may not be even a close apples-to-apples comparison, and the Eye was completed back in 2000). Also, Caesars was unresponsive to our queries about how many people ride the High Roller daily, making it impossible to guesstimate how much money the Ferris wheel is making.
Certain prices have been reduced since it debuted, and myriad specials offered over time to locals, CET hotel guests, and so on, which suggests that business may have been sluggish (we've yet to hear of anyone lining up for prolonged periods to board, as we've experienced in person at the London Eye), but there could have been some initial testing of the waters, in terms of finding optimal price points empirically. Caesars says it may start reporting ROI (return on investment) on the High Roller at the end of the third quarter, which suggests that it is doing well.
Incidentally, our own Anthony Curtis swears he saw the High Roller going counterclockwise one day not so long ago, under very poor weather conditions. Caesars spokesman Gary Thompson says "it’s possible for the High Roller to run counter-clockwise, but I don’t think it’s likely that this occurred with passengers aboard, as it would necessitate a change in the loading pattern." So, in case you were wondering, the High Roller goes both ways and Anthony was not hallucinating. The horrendous weather at the time perhaps necessitated some maintenance work on a part of the structure that was quicker accomplished by reversing the rotation.
