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Posted on 08/07/2025 8:47:22 AM PDT by Red Badger
Vegas was better when the Mafia ran it. There, we said it.
Back then, the city wasn’t a soulless corporate cash machine; it was a destination built for working-class Americans to have a good time, blow off some steam, and feel like high-rollers for a weekend. The Mafia understood their customers because they were their customers. They knew you didn’t nickel-and-dime a guy on his way to the blackjack table. You gave him cheap rooms, free drinks, affordable and abundant buffets, and enough glitz to make him feel like a big shot for a few days. The real money came from the action inside the casino, and they knew how to keep you coming back for more.
But corporate-run Vegas doesn’t operate that way. Once the stuffy suits took over, the city shifted from hospitality to exploitation. Everything became about maximizing shareholder value instead of giving Joe Blow an unforgettable weekend. Now, in 2025, Vegas is pushing resort fees, paid parking, $30 cocktails, $100 show tickets, inflated table minimums, and slot machines tightened to the point of absurdity. Now, every little thing bleeds you dry before you ever get a chance to feel like a big shot and enjoy yourself. And for the working-class crowd that once made the heart of Vegas tick, those days are long gone. Vegas today is designed to Hoover your wallet dry while giving you less in return.
The old Mob-run Vegas wasn’t perfect, and we’re not trying to glorify organized crime, but they knew the golden rule: keep the customer happy and they’ll keep coming back. The Mob cared about loyalty. They wanted you to leave feeling like you had a great time, even if you lost your shirt. Corporate Vegas doesn’t care if you ever come back. They just want to squeeze every last dime out of you while you’re there. And the result of that soulless mindset is a city that once had character and charm but now has become a sterile, overpriced, corporate strip mall with neon lights.
BroBible:
Las Vegas is dying. Fewer and fewer people are willing to spend a small fortune to visit a tourist destination that seems to get more and more expensive by the day, if not the hour.
Meanwhile, the city itself continues to ignore reality!
Blame is placed on others. Las Vegas chooses not to look internally.
Hotel occupancy rates dropped 14.6% year over year in the month of June. They were down 12.3% through the first 19 days of July.
MGM made major cuts at many of its top properties in May after tourism numbers saw a steep decline in April. Casinos were panicking in February because the gambling-focused city was empty during the Super Bowl, so hotel rooms on The Strip were selling for pennies. Resorts World specifically saw an astonishing 75% dip in revenue during the first quarter.
All of this goes to say that Las Vegas might be in trouble. The city is dying.
Cost goes up, interest goes down. A large part of the recent decline stems from the indefinite increase in price. Everything, everywhere costs more today than it did just five years ago. Duh.
That is even more true in Las Vegas!
Gone are the days of cheap buffets, free drinks, low buy-ins at the card tables and shows that are affordable. That doesn’t even include resort fees, valet, hotel accommodations, etc.
To deny the correlation between the high costs of Las Vegas and the ongoing tourism slump would be silly. People can’t afford to play as many $25 games of Blackjack compared to $5. Nobody wants to pay $17 for a smoothie or $9 for coffee.
But forget reality and actual facts. The left is so desperate to spin Vegas’s decline into an anti-Trump narrative, they’re now blaming him for a slump in tourism years after he left office.
Even The Daily Mail wasted no time cranking out this lazy clickbait take, complete with the claim that international visitors are shunning Vegas “because of Trump.”
One of the reasons Sin City’s businesses are hurting is because international visitors have continued to shun the US – including some upset over the presidency of Donald Trump.
Las Vegas welcomed 3.39 million visitors in March, down almost eight percent from 3.68million in February, according to a report by the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.
Hotels were 82.9 percent full the same month, compared with 85.3 percent full in March 2024. Midweek occupancy recorded a decline of 2.5 percent in the same period, despite more than half a million people attending conferences there.
But after getting their anti-Trump TDS headline out of the way, the Daily Mail actually pointed to the real problem, and it has nothing to do with politics. Vegas has priced out the very people who kept it alive, and now the Strip is buried under sky-high costs and a homeless/drug crisis. The Daily Mail piece goes on:
Another reason tourists might be skipping the Strip is its high prices. A visitor recently shared her shock after she was charged $26 for a bottle of Fiji water from the minibar in her room at the Aria Resort & Casino.
And a British magician was left outraged after he was billed $74.31 for two drinks at Sphere in Las Vegas. A 2024 study found that the average income of Las Vegas holidaymakers is now $93,000, with many budget travelers priced out of the gambling capital.
Homelessness in Las Vegas has also exploded, with a conservative estimate of around 8,000 people unhoused across a city of just over half a million. Walk along the busy Las Vegas Boulevard at any time of day and you will see people who are clearly homeless and often under the influence of drugs.
None of this is President Trump’s fault.
The high prices are so out of control that everyone’s competing to find the most outrageous prices in Vegas and posting about it.
That doesn’t sound like a “recipe” for tourism success.
The Telegraph:
In June, a humble bottle of water briefly became a social media sensation, when one stunned traveler revealed that it had been priced at a shocking $26 in the mini-bar at the iconic Bellagio hotel. The story was picked up across the American media.
On the popular discussion website Reddit, meanwhile, forums about Las Vegas have descended into a strange game of Top Trumps, with users competing to see who can find the most excessive examples of Vegas pricing during their visit. “I paid $14 for a bottle of Sprite and $32 for chicken tenders,” posted one user, sounding strangely proud about the whole experience.
The corporations running Las Vegas are working overtime to claw back everything they lost during the so-called “pandemic,” and they’re doing it by sticking it to their customers. The Telegraph piece goes on:
the data shows that prices have jumped disproportionately since the pandemic, with a 50 per cent rise in the average hotel room price since 2019. Fees and charges have also spiked, as casinos seek to make up for lost revenues during the shutdown.
Many experts insist the “Vegas is dying” talk is way overblown. Summer has never been peak season for Sin City; it’s too hot. Also, the city has a history of dipping, rebranding, and roaring back.
That’s all well and good, but if Vegas doesn’t return to its hospitality roots and instead keeps trying to morph into a cold, sterile, American version of Dubai, it’s likely headed for a rude awakening.
Vegas was built on the backs of hardworking Americans looking for an unforgettable weekend, not the overpriced, corporate shell we’re stuck with now.
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Click here: to donate by Credit Card Or here: to donate by PayPal Or by mail to: Free Republic, LLC - PO Box 9771 - Fresno, CA 93794 Thank you very much and God bless you. |
Chicago ran Las Vegas for a long time.
Welcome to
TRUMP Corleone
Havana
“I do really like the movie, Casino. Even though it’s protagonist is an ignorant political hack in real life.”
I’ve read the book (along with Pileggi’s “Wise Guys”) which is really an excellent read. What’s interesting is that Frank Rosenthal, the protagonist in real life, comes off more as a CPA or businessman than a mafia thug that De Niro played.
As usual, the book is much better than movie and I thoroughly enjoyed the movie.
An episode of Frank Rosenthal’s Las Vegas TV show:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4e5H3RQmkPc
That’s an awesome clip!
I remember seeing a documentary about him a while back and I came away thinking he was more of an accounting nerd than a mafia thug.
Back when it wasnt so bad, we used to pass through and stay a night and I’d go down to the gaming floor at about 4 in the morning. I’d put a 20 on the card table and tell the dealer i aint here to get rich, just here to have a nice conversation while playing a little black jack.
Nearly every time the dealers who were idle at the other tables would join in the BS session. Coffee was brought, free, and we’d all just talk. Someone came and joined the table the dealer would tell that player that its a slow game and enjoyable. A few times we filled the table up and had a great time just BSing. The casino floor was always slow at that time and they let it be.
Aint that way no more. Matter of fact, they are not opening the gaming tables till certain times now.
What a joke.
Never been to Vegas, but always wanted to check out the cheap buffets. No need to ever go there now.
I’ve been to Havana and Hawaii. Very nice places except for the poor people in Havana. Would always choose places with beaches over dry dessert towns.
I suspect that the unions have some part in that deal...........
I was thinking the same...it’s an obvious omission. Gambling wasn’t as easily accessible as it is now.
I’m often in Vegas for the Consumer Electronics Show. Buy a burrito for $20, ask for a “cup of water”, NOPE, required me to buy a fountain drink for another $8.
The place practically requires you to pay for breathing. I wouldn’t go there for just entertainment.
Another big reason not so many people don’t go to Vegas is there are many, many other states with Casinos. Why go to NV when you can stay in AL, Arkansas, Chicago, PA, Miss and many other states?
The Raiders will need a new home.
And the A’s will be better off in West Sacramento.
Somehow, all of the expert analysis here has ignored that Indian gaming is now available to most Americans and closer to home.
and as I understand it, the outlying casinos are doing very well( red rock,etc)..
as a person that goes to Vegas once a year, for basketball tournaments, the "sky is falling " is a bit much..
however as a person without a fat govt pension,do I watch my pennies?...indeed I do....and the fact that we get several nights free is probably the incentive to go.
Starting around 2002 I had visited Vegas 9 times....in the beginning it was pretty cool, then they removed double down on the video poker machines, prices started climbing the class of the tourists started falling then the Amish discovered the place.
The 6 on 1 amish assault on some innocent Mexican guy was on my very last day.
Haven’t been back in 12 years...
Many reasons for Vegas decline...
Other types of betting is increasing....
State lotteries, sport betting online, Indian Casinos, influx of drug users, dealers, and out of mind drug burnouts, re-evaluation of entertainment necessity, food price increase, resort fees, only about 7 casino buffet...and some have prime rib only once or twice a week, no cheap craps, or other gambling games, STD’s, high hotel rental fee’s, minibar auto charges based on weight of item removed from hidden scale, lots.more.....
I’m hoping for casinos in south Florida
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