I know how much most of us want to keep things the way we remember, but I’ve come to realize that wishful thinking often makes little sense. Our world is in ceaseless motion, and if I didn’t know that with certainty, I do now after a recent trip to Las Vegas.
For almost two decades, I have traveled to “Sin City” with a handful of friends from my days at The Seattle Times. Three of the people in the initial group worked directly for me, and since that first trip, more and more people have jumped aboard this exploration of one of America’s true 24/7 cities.
Through most of our group trips there, I could say Las Vegas played the hospitality game better than any other city on the planet. Casino after casino offered perks that kept gamblers – the degenerates and every other kind – flocking back for more. People spent gladly, too. Inexpensive, quality meals and cheap entertainment made the hundreds of dollars you dropped at the gaming tables worth it.
No more.
Vegas has become like the discount airlines. The place charges for everything.
Want to self-park? Go ahead, but you’ll pay $8 to do so. How do you like your hotel rate of $99 per night? Too good to be true, ain’t it? Well, it is. Tack on the resort fees, which add another $30 or more to the cost of a night’s sleep, and that cheap room doesn’t look cheap anymore.
Cha-Ching!
I don’t need to wonder why casinos are trying so hard to squeeze every dime they can out of their customers. Stamped on each one of these gamblers is a gigantic dollar sign, and the casinos have turned those signs into big profits.
Cha-Ching!
The bargains that made Las Vegas world famous when mobsters ran it have vanished. Now, the city is as corporate as any other place. It almost has a disdain for the pedestrian, favoring the spectacular over the ordinary.
And the spectacular comes at a high price.
The casinos push that cost onto their customers, though they add a little something-something to pad their take.
Cha-Ching!
I find it hard to accept their greed. But I’ve always had a problem with greed so naked that it reeks of exploitation. Casinos like Harrah’s, Flamingo or Aria that have been run well have always been assured of a hefty financial statement, and they needed to do nothing more than just be hospitable to the suckers who visit town to throw away their money.
The suckers might have to turn the tables. They won’t continue to accept how a casino nickels and dimes them. All they want is to be pampered; they don’t want to be driven to the edge of bankruptcy.
From where I sit, they have embraced the wrong approach. Casinos had the market cornered on adult fun and could have kept that market had they not allowed greed to blind them.
I have no idea what casinos are thinking. I guess they’re not thinking, because if they were, they’d ditch the resort fee, let people park for free and comp a steak dinner for a man who just dropped two grand at the blackjack table.
That’s not a big cost to MGM. It never has been, which doesn’t explain the need to squeeze blood from every gambler.
Cha-Ching!
