How did Las Vegas Survive the Coronavirus Pandemic?

Las Vegas is the one place on earth that is most synonymous with gambling. Sin City brings in a huge amount of revenue every year from tourists visiting one of the many incredible casinos that are located on the strip. It’s not just the money spent on gambling that provides Vegas with its revenue though. There are a number of different retail outlets and entertainment venues located here too. Not to mention the high class hotels on offer. Vegas is known as the city that never sleeps and with good reason.

What really hit Vegas hard was that it survives on tourism from around the world. Even if Las Vegas had been fully open during the peak the possibility of tourists being able to visit from around the world would have been miniscule. If Vegas had been fully open then it still would have brought in some tourists from the state itself and possibly surrounding states. This wouldn’t have provided anywhere near what it gets during peak tourist season though.

So, how has it managed to survive the last year with Covid-19 running rampant? Well, there are a lot of different facets to how Las Vegas managed to survive. With visitors to the city dropping by 90% at the height of the pandemic a lot of measures had to be taken to ensure that the city could continue to stay afloat. It didn’t need to thrive, it had to survive.

Cutting Costs

One of the biggest measures that Las Vegas had to take was to cut down on costs. With large running costs in place for all of the different casinos on the strip, unless these were cut down the sites had no way of surviving. This obviously meant that some difficult decisions had to be taken.

Some of the decisions were to cut jobs. Many people who worked at the casinos lost their jobs. While this is obviously a decision that no-one really wanted to make, in order to make sure that there was a job to come back to once the pandemic had died down, job cuts had to be made.

Entertainment was also cut down significantly. It meant that the shows which usually cost a huge amount of money to put on were cancelled. Obviously there was lost revenue from tourists being unable to visit and watch the shows, but by not putting the shows on in the first place it meant that costs could also be kept to a minimum.

The sites also significantly cut down on how much power they were using. This helped to keep running costs much lower. There were other measures put in place as well, but one of the biggest steps that Las Vegas put in place was to cut costs as much as possible.

Small Scale Opening

One of the first things that casinos did was to create a safer environment for players. By opening the casinos to a much smaller number of visitors it meant that the sites could remain open and still bring in revenue. Obviously, the revenue that the sites brought in wasn’t at the same level as before the pandemic, but it was enough to provide the casinos with a little bit of breathing room. It meant that money was still coming in and the local economy was still working, even if at a much smaller scale.

With visitors to Vegas dropping by 90% it meant that there wasn’t enough custom to fill the sites anyway. By using this to the advantage of the casinos it meant that small scale opening could be undertaken. While it wasn’t a huge amount of revenue, it was better than nothing and provided some respite.

It also meant that the retail outlets and entertainment venues also had a small amount of revenue coming in. Just like the casinos the amount of revenue was significantly lower, but it still provided a small amount that could potentially allow these businesses to survive beyond the pandemic.

Online Casinos

This was the biggest aspect that allowed Las Vegas to survive. With online gambling becoming legal recently, this was a big move for casinos within Vegas. Without the revenue from online gambling the casinos on the strip may well have been forced to close forever. This means that some iconic venues would have been gone, never to return.

Online gambling provides a fantastic casino experience by creating video game versions of casino games. Modern technology has made it possible for more than just video game versions of casino games to be played though. It offers the ability to use video streaming technology to create an immersive casino game experience. The range of different live dealer casino games really puts players right into the real world casino experience.

By offering these betting options Las Vegas casinos have been able to keep bringing in revenue. This could be the difference between the sites closing for good and surviving until the city is fully open again.

This article does not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors or management of EconoTimes