Yea, the economy is in the toilet along with the value of the USD$. Casinos have laid off many employees. The housing market is pretty bad as well.

Is there anything upbeat on the Strip? Are workers there happy at all?

I have dealt with people my entire career as a social worker and many times I can figure people out, especially their moods. Are employees just putting on the "fake" smiles?

I was told by my good friend who lives there, not to worry!

I guess I'm just a bleeding heart, but not a liberal...

Yeah, it's a mess here.

same as everywhere else?

low end - not good
high end - no change

people who spend less than they earn are doing just fine...

people who bought a normal house or less house than they were "approved" for are doing just fine...

people who obtained a normal mortgage are doing just fine...

people with high demand skills sets are doing just fine...

I've lived in the rust belt and I'll take boomtown over it any day.

Casino-hotels are quietly nickel-and-diming patrons. It's subtle. In-room internet, once $10, might now be $14. A $3.50 ATM charge is now an even more outrageous $4.99. Your kid can't get chocolate milk at the buffet. Little stuff.

if vegas was hurting as people say, i thought hotels would comp lots of stuff or lower rates to get people to come to contribute to the vegas' economy.

i just checked the hotel rooms (strip's), rates are high still.

hubby and i were planning to spend this thanksgiving in vegas. but as the rate of nickel-diming guests continue to go up, we may change our plans to go else where. maybe atlantic city? we have never been there.

oh, we went to san diego and stayed at barona's, we like the place a lot so we might return for thanksgiving.

The more worrisome thing is, with the number of visitors to Las Vegas down by 15 percent, will the casinos be tempted to start taking 10-cards out of the shoe or switching in the six-ace flats.

Was in Las Vegas in March, May and July this week. The main strip hotels looked busy and packed to me. Had trouble finding sunbeds in decent locations at Bellagios in May and even in July (not a holiday) the pool was packed at the weekend.

Was surprised given I had heard about the concerns with the Las Vegas economy.

Full prices at the moment. Might get interesting if the convention business starts to decline if businesses really get into trouble.

Was there yesterday, day trip (triple points ), not busy at all even with a convention going on at Venetian. Flight out was half full, flight back this morning was 17 people on WN. Granted it is mid-week but still, it's gotta hurt.

^^ Gotta love the casino day trip.

Haven't done one of those to Vegas is quite a while (well, actually not since NW had $105'ish RT all-in fares from CVG-LAS).... but, it was a bit tiring to arrive at 4PM and depart on the 1AM red-eye.

So, is the triple points Wednesday @ "V" an ongoing promotion? I "sort-of" thought it was a summer thing.

yeah, it's on those LCD equipped player card screen machines and it advertises that Wednesdays are triple points. Does not give an expiration date. Got almost 20K pts yesterday for a few hours "work" and requalified for Gold. Had a great dinner at Cut. Japanese kobe, yum ^.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2008...opolitan-play/
"Buyout keeps Cosmopolitan in play - Lender reclaims resort, commits Perini to completing it"

current team >
Related Cos. (new)
W.A. Richardson Builders (new)
The Friedmutter Group of Las Vegas (remains)
Arquitectonica Corp. of Miami (remains)

good news for the 1,800 condo owners, when the market still isnt great.

OTOH very bad news for meridian owners >
http://www.lvrj.com/business/27267774.html
"Meridian said to have run illegal hotel - Audit suggests condo property owes taxes for illicitly offering overnight rentals"

There have been a few good deals offered, I wouldn't expect to see deals for Thanksgiving for at least another month though.

That being said, I think a lot of the really good deals are going to folks the casinos already know, i.e., people who have gambled there in the past ... the casinos would like to avoid having folks who are just tourists and not gambling much and I think in part they're resorting to offering better deals to smaller-time gamblers to get them in (and I say that based on my personal experience as a small-time gambler).

Yep,
While occupancy at the hotels is down, the bigger issue, is that the WIN is also down for the strip casinos.

The casinos need to fill up their properties and fill up their drop boxes at the tables. So, fishing for previous [gambling] customers; or modifications to offer qualifications (i.e. giving free rooms to those that previously didn't qualify) makes good business sense.

Let's face it, the we love non-revenue clients [who drop lots of money at our properties on fine dining etc] just as much as the [mainstream] gamblers years of Vegas expansion are coming to an abrupt halt.

Previously, the gaming industry was pretty much "recession proof" --- but, that was before we had multiple resorts with 5,000+ rooms.

It should be interesting....

It's already interesting for me. I've been inundated with offers from PH after playing there during one weekend and also partaking in a slot tourney.

Harrahs, where I don't play very much has given me a bunch of offers including weekend stays. Usually I will try to take up one of their offers by asking for Paris and I'll get a sold out response. Now even Paris is readily available on weekends. Guess I'll try increase my status there now .