May I respectfully mention that many visitors are avoiding Las Vegas because of it's liberal smoking policy? My friends and I went last year and found that it was just not possible to avoid the smoke and still try to do much of anything....why would I want to breathe that stuff the entire time I'm on vacation? It makes me physically ill...sore throat, congestion, what's the fun it that?

Yes I know Vegas is supposed to be the last great place for smokers to light up, but considering something like 80 percent of people don't smoke, it would make sense to have a few more facilities that cater to non-smokers as well. That would definitely get me to go back, especially if I could play some slots in a smoke-free room (and no, the 10 slot machines walled off by themselves in the non-smoking section don't count...you still have to walk through the rest of the smoke-filled casino to get there).

In the process, I drink (which I pay for) and talk to people and have fun. If I walk out with nothing, I had a few hours of good entertainment, and most of the time, I walk out with more then I came in with.

If I ever sit down at a table and am not having fun, I'll simply get up and go to another... if that doesn't work, I walk out.

It sure beats walking into a bar where I have to scream over loud music and worry about drunk frat boys trying to start a fight.

@nstonep:

[www.arialasvegas.com]

Your an idiot.

City Center is made up of 10,000 hotel/condo units. The condo units get sold as hotel rooms when the owner is not staying there.

City Center's main hotel Aria opens in December, all exterior work on the hotel is finished. They are putting the final touches on the property now. Workers are already hired and training on site, and at other hotels.

MGM has already secured financing to finish City Center.
The money issues were settled back in April
[abcnews.go.com]

You come on a website and spout shit you know nothing about.

Your an idiot.

Though nowadays...houses are really cheap here; just...it's Vegas...you live here for work or school (or both), finish the job, then move onto somewhere better (ie San Diego).

What they need to build is a huge ass amusement park resort to bring families to the area (not the strip).

There are less than 50 major casinos but I haven't counted or checked. Then there's the local casinos (station, m, southpoint) which are actual casinos but generally in areas to service locals and driving visitors from california and arizona.

So generally speaking, if the area is hurting it's these companies that are going to bear the brunt of the problem. And the main problem is the setup itself. It's essentially set up for drinking, strippers, gambling, and boinking strangers.

They need to find a way to draw family vacations here (obviously segmented from the other partition) which they haven't done or even thought about. Sure there's Circus Circus, Excalibur, and MGM which have some activities for families but no one wants to take their family to an area where they'll have to trip over drunken frat boys and box wine bitches.

Glory days where people from all 5 closest states drove in is long gone.

You have to let it go man. Let it go.
/Pat the back

It's loud, brash, cheesy, offensive, tacky, sinful, and more importantly *fun*.

I've had great Superbowl parties there, I've had fantastic bachelor weekends there, I had one of the most romantic weekends of my life there.

Is it depressing when you're grinding away at a craps table in the Flamingo at 2 in the morning? Yes. Yes, it is.

But the *highs* I've had in that town were magnificent.

I'd rather visit Yellowstone, the Smithsonian, or Europe. But I'd also rather eat steak dinners with fine wine every night. Yet that doesn't mean I don't have a soft spot in my hear for a late-night In-N-Out burger or 7-11 nachos run.

Vegas is what it is, and I love it for it.

It's nowhere near as great as the best in Vegas, but good God, it's sooo much better than the 1970s knockoff Trumps. . .

Also, I can't believe that with all the money people give them they're still in debt. Sounds like everyone involved has poor money skills.

If you ant to see sad, check out the dereclict abandoned casinos in Reno... there's giant empty old buildings on the strip, such as it is. And plenty more abandoned properties just off of it. There's only harrah's, Circus Circus, Cal-Neva, Silver legacy on the main road itself. there's 3 more to the side. And more than 3 shells of long-closed casinos and stores lining the street. there's also quite a few abandoned condo projects downtown. The housing market withered up.

Though it does have a 24 hour McDonald's right next to a strip joint, so that's nice.

@squinko - has 50 followers, what more do I need?!: the nevada state flower is the traffic cone.

@The Porkchop Express: The Bunny Ranch is up by Carson. hell of a drive for a brothel.

@Murph1908: I went right about January 1st of 2008 when things were still relatively booming and wasn't impressed at all. I thought the service was terrible everywhere, and in a city that's supposed to survive on service alone. I'd like to go back sometime early next year and see how different things are.

I'm sure the builders, at least, knew what was brewing with the housing market overheating. What they didn't expect, I think, was the impact that the failure of the housing market had on the overall economy. Certainly the casino owners who kept ordering more buildings didn't see it coming.

On top of that was the same mentality that fed the housing market boom itself. Casino owners became accustomed to huge, glitzy grand openings bringing in millions of dollars in revenue. They could grab that cash, and put off the payments by highly leveraging. So it didn't cost them anything out of their pockets to build yet-another-casino, but it would almost always bring them more revenue. So like everyone else, they only thought about the cash flow and not the debt, and now they have years of debt to pay off.

I was there in July. Bill's Gamblin' Hall still has $2 beer and hotdogs.

Not to mention that it looks like a third-world bazaar covered in neon (or were those LED's?).

@squinko - has 50 followers, what more do I need?!: Well...that was per Wikipedia :)

@citking: But what about the other things? outside of Vegas.

Is the Bunny Ranch lowering prices?

@morlo: but Willows is where I would go first.

@Chmeeee: "Need" is not really a word applicable to Vegas.

@Skipweasel:

To compare gambling halls in the UK to the Las Vegas Strip is insane.

[www.encorelasvegas.com]

That is the last hotel I stayed at in Vegas.

Here is it's sister propriety, the only casino/resort in the world to be named Mobil 5 star, AAA 5 diamond and Michelin 5 red pavilion.

[www.wynnlasvegas.com]

There is nothing depressing about most strip hotels, most not all.

19 of the 25 largest hotels on earth are located within 4 miles of each other on Las Vegas Blvd, AKA "The Strip".

[www.vegastodayandtomorrow.com]

This does not include City Center, which is pictured in this story and goes live in December with 10,000 rooms, or Cosmopolitan, 3,000 rooms, or Fontainebleau, 4,000 rooms. All of which will join this list in the next year or two. The four mile area of "the strip" will contain 22, or 23 of the largest 25 hotels on earth in the next 2 years. Some place in Dubai will take a spot in the top 10. Regardless there will be close to 150,000 hotel rooms within 4 miles of each other, amazing.

@Smashville_not taking it seriously:

Try 127,000 rooms, give or take a few, and around 30 casino/hotles. This is in the 4 mile area of Las Vegas BLVD known as "the strip".

[www.vegastodayandtomorrow.com]

This does not included more then 15,000 rooms set to go live in the next 2 years.

Customer loyalty? I'm imagining that board meeting.. How can we make our customers more addicted to gambling? ohh ooh ohh How about putting cocaine on their dirnks?

I strongly suspect so, in order to reduce available supply to meet demand.

Both casinos are reporting drops in visitors and in gambling activity ... but curiously, room rates and the costs of incidentals in the casinos remain as high as they ever were. Hmm.

Over the past several years, those perks were gone, replaced with overpriced hotels and restaurants.

In September, I started seeing the gimmicks again. Many casinos had girls dancing on tables and slot machine islands. I am getting great offers in the mail for packages. And the Excalibur had a $2 beer and hotdog combo. =)

@GitEmSteveDave_IsWaving: Well, when people are leaving semen and DNA on every surface imaginable, it's understandable. I just hope they washed their hands before they ate.

The problem with Vegas is that they are peddling fake luxury. Just embrace the fact that you are a cheesy desert outpost and build hotels that are priced accordingly.

And, for no other reason than I can, I'd like to rant slightly:
Man, the Imperial Palace just hasn't been the same since Harrahs bought it from Ralph Engelstad's widow. Before Harrah's bought it, that place had the best happy hour on the strip. It's slowly been morphing into a low-rent Harrah's/Flamingo clone. On the plus side, after reading this article, it probably won't be torn down for something new anytime soon. I may think it's not "as good" as before, but I still like going there every time I'm in Vegas.

The Strip has 67,000 rooms and 183 casinos.

Forgive me if I have a hard time shedding tears.

Las Vegas looks like such a disaster zone now, doesn't it? I was last there a few years back, before the downturn, and even then it all seemed so excessive that it was possible that sooner or later it would all collapse.

You mean that the road with 17 of the 20 biggest hotels in the world doesn't need more and bigger hotels? Who would've thought?!?