Vegas seems to be slowly dying, Idk what happened to Vegas, but whatever it is, I hope it stays in Vegas.
Over built expensive hotels and casinos right when casinos are opening just about everywhere. Everything I need to know about Las Vegas I learned when I heard they started having triple zero roulette. Take the game with some of the worst odds (most money for the casino) and make it 50% worse.
The Mafia knew that the cheap rooms and buffets and free drink loss-leaders would loosen up the marks and they could clean up on the gambling floor.
The bean-counters running Vegas now think they're running a McDonald's.
Indian casinos are taking a big chunk of their business. There are half a dozen near me San Diego). Nice rooms, golf courses, big pools with "lazy rivers", lots of 70's, 80's and 90's bands playing for entertainment, variety of dining and bars. They ain't Vegas, but they ain't the Indian Casinos of 20 or 30 years ago. And they're not a 5 or 6 hour drive.
Vegas was about laundering money. The gambling was an add-on.
No money laundering - no Vegas.
“Idk what happened to Vegas”
I’ll probably be scoffed at by some among FR’s stoner contingent, but I think the town finally jumped the shark when they legalized weed a few years ago. As someone who remembers the Vegas of the ‘80s and the ‘90s when old mobbed-up-type gentlemen wearing suits and pinky rings still ran the Strip, it was extreme culture shock for me to visit the Vegas Strip in 2021 and find countless Snoop-Dogg clones loitering around on the sidewalk. These gangsta entrepreneurs seemed as if they’d been transplanted from south-central L.A. to stand around smoking weed and conducting petty drug deals to idiot tourists. It was a far-cry from the Rat-Pack cool of the old Vegas. I haven’t been back since.
Idk what happened to Vegas,
The mob stopped running it.
The mob was driven out and investment firms with accountants moved in.
Everything now has a price, an inflated price. Long gone are the 5 bucks all you can eat buffets and cheap drinks to keep people on the property to gamble. There are reports of 20 dollar bottles of waters in hotel rooms and charging for parking in the hotel you're staying in. The new owners running the casinos have made it unaffordable.
I happened to watch a youtube video of the main drag filmed and posted last weekend. At 10 PM, there were only 3 to 5 people walking around in each shot.
It's a ghost town with flashing lights.
I was in Las Vegas about 5 or 6 years ago. I spent 1 afternoon playing the quarter slots and about 2 weeks of my time just walking the strip and I spent some time in the Old Las Vegas.
There was enough to keep me occupied for two weeks without having to spend a dime in the casinos.
I remember the real Las Vegas. Now, it’s just an adult Disneyland for idiots with too much money to blow. That crap out in the desert is no longer Las Vegas. It’s a rip off.