It’s a safe bet: the Las Vegas area seems to march on despite a jittery economy and a slowdown in much of the rest of the casino industry.
Gambling revenues on the Strip are way up in recent months despite higher energy prices and the housing slump. Some of the city’s largest casinos are on pace for a record-setting year, reported the Nevada Gaming Commission.
But nowadays Las Vegas is even managing to sever itself from a jittery economy causing conniptions among retailers, restaurateurs and other consumer-oriented businesses including the rest of the casino industry.
In October alone, gambling revenues on the Las Vegas Strip were up almost 10% over the same month last year.
“By contrast, casinos elsewhere are not proving so resilient. From the riverboats of the Midwest and tribal casinos scattered across the country to gambling halls in less exotic parts of Nevada, operators are reporting slowing growth rates in recent months,” said Bloomberg News.
“In a number of places, revenues are actually down, sometimes by 5% or more,” added the report.
In Las Vegas, one factor has been a booming Chinese economy and wealthy Asian players who are attending the city in record numbers.
“And the whole industry enjoys one advantage over its counterparts among discretionary spending activities: the propensity of people to gamble despite harder times, or perhaps because of them,” say news reports.
Report by David Wilkening
