Sin City hotel tycoon Steve Wynn certainly has something to be anxious about this Christmas time. With an investment of about $2.3 billion, the spectacular hotel and casino dubbed Encore will kick-off this week.
This lavish hotel-casino is attached to the extremely popular Wynn Las Vegas on the LV Strip. While many Sin City casino-hotel investors are trying to discover a manner to keep their hotel-casinos afloat, Wynn is doing quite well with his $billion hotel-casinos.
This 2000 room hotel and casino has left nothing to the imagination. The big attraction of this casino-hotel will be the nightclub, named XS. Wynn has taken notice in the recent past that nightclubs are a huge attraction in Vegas, and not primarily the hotels like they were years ago. He thinks that Las Vegas nightclubs typically produce more hard cash and are a massive hotspot for the younger group.
Steve Wynn has also built a lush eatery connected to the XS nightclub. The idea behind the well-known Colombian painter, Fernando Botero this circular restaurant has a massive Botero carving as the focal point. Although not dramatic as the nightclub which it is connected to; the Botero steakhouse is designed to complement quite well with the loud LV nightclub.
The design pertaining to XS and Botero is a sort of St. Tropez atmosphere, where the celebration goes on 24 hours a day and a big part of the party scene happens near a pool or ocean area. Times are changing drastically in Vegas, where many people favor parties to casinos these days.
In spite of the fact that all the large Sin City hotel casinos are doing their best to attract more Vegas tourists this year with rebates and vouchers, their slot machine business is dropping. And seeing that Sin City slot machine business creates about two thirds of Sin City’s profits, it’s not such great news for the casino hotels.
According to the Gaming Control Board, Las Vegas gamblers wagered $1.1 billion less in slot machines than last year. Slot machines on The Strip are down half a billion dollars. This stands for a drop of 12% compared to 2007. With drivers paying more than $4 per gallon for gas, gamblers are really having to save money nowadays. On the other hand with the cost of gasoline going down, these numbers might change in the near future.
Las Vegas casinos aren’t really worried about this plunge in slot machine revenues, the latest reports show that table game play is actually going up. On The Strip the volume for Vegas table games is up 5 percent, with baccarat play up 15 percent and blackjack on the rise at 7 percent. This might seem like good news but, the truth is that Strip casinos took in 21 percent less in July because of some lucky gamblers as well as gamblers winning a larger percentage than typical.
The famous saying, “The house always wins”, could be a thing of the past. But as these reports tell us, Sin City hotel casinos are are finding it more difficult to make a profit than before. This might be the best time for Vegas gamblers to start cashing in their casino coupons, taking advantage of discounts, and using their frequent flyer miles. With the Sin City hotel casinos having a run of bad luck, this could be the most convenient moment for you to visit some of Vegas’ most popular casinos.
