Once Upon A Time In The West

Ennio Morricone passed away on July 6th. He famously composed the soundtrack to the movie Bugsy, the biopic of the eponymous gangster and mythologized founder of the Las Vegas Strip. Morricone’s music can be inspiring, uplifting and thrilling, but also, melancholic and isolating.

Much like Las Vegas in 2020.

The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

The slot machines were turned off and the casino doors were closed at midnight, March 17th after the Governor’s order to shut them down. The marketing team at The El Cortez now have to reassess their long-running campaign as the longest, continually operating casino in Las Vegas.

On midnight June 5th the cash starved resort owners took a deep inhale of relief as the great silence ended, the doors reopened and the customers entered, armed with a fistful of dollars. Rumor is this was one of the best weeks in the history of DTLV for gaming revenue. It was to be the last time in a while casino owners breathed so deeply.

With neighboring California and Arizona under general shutdown and millions stuck at home across the country, the great escape that Las Vegas offered was welcome relief to news watchers and couch sitters, as thousands of trips were booked. Granted, resorts took market leading precautions by offering innovative and comprehensive steps, including temperature checkers, sanitization stations, deep cleaning of all spaces, slot machine wiping and implementing social distancing throughout the properties.

The face covering debate was a daily feature on social media in news publications and casino boardrooms, until the Governor decided the matter on June 24th mandating masks.

As far as openings go, reopening Las Vegas was a great success. We did a great job. Well done.

Those of you that have been witness to my teaching and various presentations will know my mantra, “Take gambling away from Las Vegas and the city will be fine but take conventions away and Las Vegas has a problem.”

With international travel curtailed and conventions cancelled, this caused The Strip operators a structural problem, as it is these customer segments that are among are the most profitable. In 2019 International visitors were 14% (c.6m) visitors. They stay longer and spend more in every category of expenditure, including Asian gamers that make up the high-end play that directly effects the bottom line. The 6.6m convention guests spend an average of $200 more per person per trip than average. Both sectors registered zero customers in April, May, June and July 2020. With the virus still raging across the USA, conventions and meetings are being cancelled daily, eating further into the 2021 calendar, while international customers are unable to travel – and even when they are permitted, there is no evidence that they will come in 2019 levels.

However, in a city known for the lack of mirrors; plenty of customers believe they are the untouchables. The risk-takers and “freedom” demanders have always loved Las Vegas, after all, we sell risk, non-conventional behavior and an experience loose on rules. Unfortunately, during a pandemic, when discipline, restraint and caution are required attributes, Las Vegas isn't the best place for them to be. In normal times, these customers are not perceived as high-value guests, but mid-pandemic, we welcomed them, come what may.

For a short period, they came, however visitor levels are still at unsustainably low levels, with many amenities that made the trip to Las Vegas worthwhile, closed or severely restricted. However, what these guests left behind, was more than a few extra dollars.

From a business point of view, 2020 will be the worst year in the history of the city, (until, possibly 2021) but from a health point of view, it is seriously ugly.

On the day after the casinos closed, Nevada reported 23 confirmed new Covid cases. On the day Nevada reopened casinos we had 194. For the past 30 days, the lowest daily rate of new infections was 516 and the highest 1447, coming 10 days after the July 4th weekend. On a daily basis, Nevada (pop. 3.08m) has a greater number of new Covid cases than the United Kingdom (pop. 66.6m). In Clark County, where the Strip is located, we have had over 45,000 diagnosed cases with 891 deaths at time of writing.

Moreover, there are no records of those visitors that have come to Las Vegas and returned to their hometown having contracted the virus, however social media is awash with stories of those that believe they contracted Covid while here.

Whatever the cause and whoever is to blame is not the point; it gives me no pleasure to kick the hornet’s nest and admit that Las Vegas has become a public health hazard.

City of Joy?

Las Vegas was on a roll.

About now, we were supposed to see the culmination of years of effort, innovation and investment. It didn’t work out as planned.

The Raiders are coming, and the Knights are back, but the only place you will see them is on TV.

The world’s leading entertainers are playing nightly in intimate concerts, except from their front rooms on Facebook.

In Vegas, business meetings are being held daily, but via Zoom or Webex.

 Exciting new chefs are being discovered across town, having concealed their identities as ordinary family members.

Games of chance and skill are being played at record numbers, but via consoles or online platforms.

Across the valley, shopping remains a favorite pastime; Amazon’s delivery vans have never been busier.

It is too late to close Las Vegas casinos again by decree, however the damage caused by opening too early was a mistake not unique to Nevada, especially when there was no coherent national policy. The UK instituted a 5-mile travel ban and in other countries, lockdown meant lockdown. In the USA it was driven by individual states, with people free to move around the country at will.

With casinos and gaming prevalent throughout the USA, (and with tax revenues urgently required in other states, gaming revenue may provide these where there is currently none) in order to make the city sustainable, Las Vegas needs its bars, shows, arenas and stadium, convention halls, restaurants, malls and nightclubs all back open.

In Las Vegas, where visitors come from not just across the country, but from across the world, there needs a Federal response to treat the virus, with an effective, fast-turnaround testing strategy. Our international and convention guests will not come back until there is a widely adopted vaccine, or at least an effective treatment. If neither of these materialize, there is no coming back until the virus has run its course, causing unimaginable economic and human damage. Nobody will care what happens in Vegas.

It was nearly spectacular, once upon a time in America.