I can't keep track of who owns what anymore with all the bankruptcies and divestures. One company owns the hotel, another is the operator, etc.
Any chance casino gambling in Las Vegas will be shrunken to sports book only?
- Thread starter GON
- Start date
Are the room rates changing?
Jack, probably the most cash positive guy in Las Vegas at the time, lived is a 2000ish sqft ranch (which was 99% of the houses in Vegas at the time), in a regular neighborhood, not to far from my middle school. I met him several times as a kid, and was an unremarkable person. Nothing other than normal. Becky his sister and Ted were another story.
You seem perhaps interested in LV history. This person is little known, unless you know........but a hell of a person...
https://lasvegassun.com/news/2009/may/13/casino-owner-philanthropist-claudine-williams-dies/
I'm a history buff regarding Vegas.
Maybe with lower limits. As much as they like bringing in leisure travelers who still pay for food and lodging, they make an inordinate amount of money on high rollers. Not sure, but I'd think they still keep better odds but expect a lot more money to be gambled. The days of loss leaders are over.
Much of what most people think of as Las Vegas has no city government, so Clark County controls everything, including the police. But that also includes room and car rental taxes that pay for all sorts of things.
And the airport is maxing out where there's a proposed new airport along with a widened I-15 to accommodate the expected traffic.
Pretty much all casino games are waste of money, people go there to dump money and to pass time and to drink while surrounded by other people, they often do it due to loneliness. Imho, the only game where some people can make money is poker but it takes skills, patience, discipline and good buy-in cash reserve to begin with. Poker is the only game I'd play at a casino but that means I'll be breaking away from a group I'm in, others just play slots, some other tables; they run out of money rather quickly and wanna leave. Poker is usually a long game session, my longest was 26 hours...
A question for the LV historian: How many did that and approximately how long ago?
I love how they call gambling, "gaming" and sports gambling, "book"....anything to sterilize it.
Yep. Rates fluctuate depending the time of year and week. Besides not everyone pays those rates remember and many times you have a couple of people to a room which reduces the cost per person. You gotta know how to look for deals.
IIRC Jack went to work for Wynn in Macau after he sold off Binions/WSOP. He's retired but I don't know where.
Claudine Williams reminds me of Joyce Mack who passed last year. https://www.unlv.edu/news/article/longtime-unlv-supporter-joyce-mack-passes-away
Sports book get its name because its the place in the casino where you go to "book your bet". Your bet is logged on a "ledger" aka a book. Perhaps you mean the term sports betting?
Gaming is what it is. You're playing a game and betting on the outcomes. The terms is also used to describe the regulator (ex, Nevada Gaming Control Board, NV Gaming Commission, etc). Betting is synonymous with gambling. Casinos also use the term "gaming floor" to notate the area where these games are present.
The suicide rate is really high in LV but as a LV coroner said, it's not about losing their money. It's about visiting LV for one last party before checking out. IOW, they traveled to LV with the intent of committing suicide.
Last edited:
Most of the casino profit comes from slot machines, not blackjacks or roulettes. Probably they decided the overhead (casino floor space, labor, etc) has gone up and unless they change the minimum bet per round they won't make as much, so they decide to reduce the winning odds. Comparing odds in a casino IMO is a losing game, you are probably going to come out ahead if you don't play to begin with vs losing more and losing less.
Younger people don't like to gamble as much as the older generation. They already saturated their gambling addiction brain circuit with smart phone games and stock marekt. They definitely are going to Vegas either for concerts, shows, clubs, or high end foods, instead of cheap and near free buffets of the 90s and earlier. I miss the older Vegas and after my visit back in 2022 I no longer want to go back to the strip. It is now the worst tourist trap I can think of. The best non gouging food I can find in a Casino is a new one way outside the strip, I forgot the name but it is like a food court along the casino slot machines. It is not a high end casino like those on the strip. Even there the price is just "normal" price you find on a big city not a subsidized price like the casino restaurant of the 90s.
The non casino hotels and motels are likely the result of conferences being a bigger part of the city. I would imagine companies do not want to send their employees to a conference, telling them to stay in a casino hotel, having a couple lose their nested eggs, then come back to either sue the employers or commit suicide.
Younger people don't like to gamble as much as the older generation. They already saturated their gambling addiction brain circuit with smart phone games and stock marekt. They definitely are going to Vegas either for concerts, shows, clubs, or high end foods, instead of cheap and near free buffets of the 90s and earlier. I miss the older Vegas and after my visit back in 2022 I no longer want to go back to the strip. It is now the worst tourist trap I can think of. The best non gouging food I can find in a Casino is a new one way outside the strip, I forgot the name but it is like a food court along the casino slot machines. It is not a high end casino like those on the strip. Even there the price is just "normal" price you find on a big city not a subsidized price like the casino restaurant of the 90s.
The non casino hotels and motels are likely the result of conferences being a bigger part of the city. I would imagine companies do not want to send their employees to a conference, telling them to stay in a casino hotel, having a couple lose their nested eggs, then come back to either sue the employers or commit suicide.
Gambling is the bait but restaurants, shopping, nightlife, etc. have taken over as the big bread winners for the casinos.
We have massive convention space here as well, which brings in a lot people to fill in the week.
We have massive convention space here as well, which brings in a lot people to fill in the week.
Like I said earlier, the big casinos make most of their table game profits from the high limits areas. I remember playing blackjack at one of the big Strip casinos, and a dealer told me that her shift split up tips worth over $12,000 per dealer for one night because they had some megarich guy who was just dropping big tips all night. It didn't sound like he really cared about winning or not. At that casino, all dealers on the same shift split the tips regardless of where they were dealing in the casino. I think the dealer was telling me that to not make me feel bad about playing low limits and leaving fairly small tips commensurate with the low limits.
Who me? Not sure you are being sincere or sarcastic.......... I would not say I am an historian, but grew up in the late 70s and early 80s, a turbulent and prosperous time. My dad, aunt and uncle was all executives, most notably, my Aunt, who was exec manager of the Horseshoe in Bossier City, but was an executive at a few hotels in Vegas. My Uncle was exec manager of Harrahs in Bossier, and LV, my dad was the first executive casino host in Las Vegas, for Holiday Casino, which became what we now know as Harrah's. I know more than the average bear, because I was there, not because I read it somewhere. At one point or the other, I met Tony Spilotoro, Lefty Rosenthal, and several others that you would not know, simply because of who my dad was.
to your question........
I remember being present at 2, but there were more.
Who knows, If I had to guess it would be somewhere quiet.
That might be the case sometimes, especially now, as it is hard to say why people do what they do. There is no doubt that part of it is shame. Today, it would be much harder to jump, back in the day, people would go on the rooftop for several reasons....and will leave it at that.
Are you from LV?
The Las Vegas strip isn't in Las Vegas. It's in a Paradise, NV. But the mailing address is Las Vegas, NV. Weird. Downtown Las Vegas is Las Vegas.
Since we play enough in Atlantic City, we get deeply discounted or free hotel rooms in Las Vegas. I have friends that play a lot more than we do that get free rooms, food, beverage, and airfare.
I know two people that went to Las Vegas to commit suicide. One was successful.
You met Tony Spilotro? LOL Jesus.
No, I'm not from LV. We had friends who lived there for around 15 yrs and we have been traveling there at least once a year for the past 25 yrs or so. Because we traveled there so often we became interested in the history. We almost always go out there for WSOP for 7-10 days. To keep it affordable my wife finds amazing deals on rooms and we often dine off strip at local restaurants.
Have you been to the Harrah's Cherokee in WNC?
Sure did. Did not know who they were at the time....but yes. My parents were precisely, DeNiro and Stone in "Casino".....all the way down to the suit, and Cadillac.
See, back in the day, before those "credit card" readers, that are at every slot and every table, there was no way to tabulate how much money someone was spending. It really had more to do with the player, than how much they played. Drinks were free, 100% free, and many times so was the food. Drinks becuase they want you to get drunk, AND SPEND MORE MONEY, but food, as a courtesy, of course, "a comp". If you were a rude douchebag,= no food or worse, if you were nice and clean, and enjoyable to be around, free buffet.
And if you were connected enough, you could comp a meal at any restaurant on the strip or downtown. Mizunos was a "secret place" at the Tropicana back in the day, all comped meals, for VIPs.
When you are making money, hand over fist, who cares about food? The mob wanted a clean place from people to go and spend their money....no trouble. Win big?, Still get a comped meal, maybe a free night.....just to make you happy and come back.
Today I fear things are much more commercial, and less personal. Not enough money lost=to bad, pay for your own dinner. In the LV I knew, the strip was clean, no crime, no police, no porn........mostly before Fremont Street was actually a road people drove on.
Reverse of you, I have not been there since New years 2000.
I have been to Harrahs Cherokee, and it is filthy
I took an Uber from the airport to an in-town rental place last time I visited. Saved substantially over airport rental rates.
The Uber airport concession fee made even the ride out more than 2x the ride back. Everywhere's a ripoff. The resort fees are as much as the hotel rooms.
Place I stayed at had an outdoor pool. The building was all glass and reflecting down at me and it was like there were two suns, in July to top it all off.
Fail to see how it's fun.
IMO, in Vegas the difference between organized crime and the corporations in casino ownership is the corporations have no family values and they don't comp.
There is a reason tourist destinations heavily tax hotel rooms and rental cars. Generally speaking locals don't use them much. It's a classic case of taxation without representation, otherwise known as bleed the tourists dry. Not saying I support it, but it is what it is.
There is a reason tourist destinations heavily tax hotel rooms and rental cars. Generally speaking locals don't use them much. It's a classic case of taxation without representation, otherwise known as bleed the tourists dry. Not saying I support it, but it is what it is.