Trump International is hawking bargain rates for the Yuletide season, including price-matching, Saks Fifth Avenue discounts, “guaranteed late check out” (translation: Please stay with us!) and more. The sheer plethora of discounts and giveaways hints at an increasing level of desperation within Trump’s Stump. However, it’s also laudable to see the Donald Trump/Phil Ruffin property get off its high horse and start competing in this value-driven market like any other hotel … which it is. Minus gambling. Bit of a miscalculation, that.
We’re not No. 1! And it’s a good thing because Las Vegas has fallen from first to 25th in U.S. home foreclosures. Barring a dump of the “shadow inventory” of bank-owned homes, we have finally seen the worst. However, if 
you’re wondering at the pallor of Nevada’s gaming recovery, such as it is, note that the top-seven cities are all in California. As you may recall, then-Gov. “Midnight Jim” Gibbons (right) denounced the State of Nevada’s Chinese tourism office as “a waste of taxpayer money” and urged the gambling and tourism industries to put all their eggs in the California basket. With thinking like that, it’s no wonder that Gibbons was swiftly and involuntarily retired from public service. The high foreclosure rates in Chicago and Rockford also bode ill for the viability of sought-after casino projects in those two Illinois markets.
Just because you put someone’s name on something and paint it in gold does not make it luxury. Most of the Trump mystique is illusion. Was this the big announcement we had been hearing of for months? “Hey, I don’t know a thing about the Vegas market so now I will discount my way into the news.” I would rather stay at the Vegas Club during a Shriners convention than put a nickel into this pathetic architectural nightmare. It is rare when you can put the words tacky and Vegas in a negative connotation. This boy managed to pull it off.
If Mr. Trump wants to increase his revenue in Las Vegas he should apply for a gaming license in Nevada and put a small casino in his Trump property. This might piss off Phil Ruffin but at least he would get a lot more foot traffic through there. Since Phil Ruffin is part of owner of Trump International Las Vegas I am not even sure if Mr. Trump could do this.
If it’s Ruffin’s fault there’s no gambling, it was damned short-sighted of him. There’s not enough acreage there to build a casino that could remotely compete with Treasure Island … but it might have forestalled Trump International from being slowly converted to yet another Hilton Grand Vacations tower.
The location of Trump is crappy, I can’t imagine a casino could even save that place.