Old Vegas is Gone

How Vegas is changing

Last update: November 19, 2024

If what you know of Vegas comes from TV/movies or visits long ago, that Vegas is gone. If you were expecting buffets everywhere, variety shows, decent gambling, and value in general, you're in for a shock. All that's changed. Here's the rundown of what's different circa the last twenty years.

Summary

Gambling. The odds are far worse, both table games and slots, and the table minimums are up. Gambling itself is on the decline, partly because of the bad odds, and partly from the properties' focus. Gaming accounted for 75% of revenue from the 1950s to the 90s, but today it's only 25%. (Casino.org) The effects of all this have reverberated: There are fewer slots, fewer table games, the games are lousy, and the casinos nickel and dime you left and right. Old Vegas is gone.
Nickel-and-Diming. From resort fees to paid parking, get ready to pay through the nose.
Hotel-Casinos. There's been a lot of shake-up. Lots of old favorites are gone or renamed, and new ones have appeared. There's now a non-smoking casino, Park MGM.
Ambiance. Some better, some worse. The Arch over the street at the Strat is a nice addition; with the street performers, it depends on whom you ask. Ditto for the ubiquitous pot smoke.
Food. The buffets are mostly gone, but the strip is finally vegetarian-friendly.
Entertainment. Variety shows are gone. Showgirls are gone. Lounge shows are mostly gone, definitely gone from the strip. The Mirage volcano is no more. But now we have a huge neon Sphere.
Transportation. The monorail is set for demolition, while the first Tesla tunnels have opened, with plans for stations/stops all along the strip and at the airport.

Nickel-and-Diming

This is the new normal. Hotel/casinos used to entice you with cheap rooms and cheap food to get you to gamble. Those days are over.

Resort fees. Every. Single. Casino. on the Strip charges a "resort fee", separate from the room rate, of $22 to $51 per night. (LV Jaunt) They say the resort fee gets you thinks like WiFi and pool access, which isn't true because you can't opt out of the fee and decline those services. That means that particular services can't be tied to the fee.
Paid parking. Free parking isn't over just for the general public, the casino-hotels typically charge you to park even if you're a guest of the hotel.
Fee for early check-in. Used to be that if your room was ready before 3:00 or 4:00pm, the hotels would let you check in early, for free. Now, often not free, expect a $25 charge.
Policing the "free" drinks. Free drinks for gamblers has been a hallmark of Vegas for decades. Play any game, and before long a cocktail waitress will come around to take your order. (Standard tip is $1-2.) Some casinos are now testing a system where your slot machine will spit out a voucher once you've played enough to "earn" your free drink. Talk about a buzz kill. This is not your father's Las Vegas.

Gambling

Gambling is in decline. The number of slot machines on the Vegas Strip peaked in 1999 at around 61,000, and has been declining since then, hitting 28,257 in June 2022. (LVRJ and NGCB) The number of table games has been plummeting, too. Reasons include the younger generation being less interested in gambling, and casinos making the odds worse so the games aren't as attractive any more. Old Vegas practically gave away the rooms and the meals to try to get you to gamble. New Vegas doesn't care whether you gamble, they're focusing on getting revenue from rooms, meals, and entertainment.
$5 tables. The median minimum on the strip is now $15.
Some casinos drop the table games. Some casinos which used to have table games have gone slots-only, notably Casino Royale (2020) and Slots-a-Fun (2011). See the full list.
Live-dealer games increasingly replaced with electronic games, or hybrid games that are mostly electronic but still have a dealer. These include:

Stadium games. A new version of blackjack has up to 44 players, served by a combination of a live dealer and a computer terminal. The dealer deals the cards (and each player plays off the same two player cards), and the screen is for betting and choosing whether to hit, stand, etc. One the one hand it's not the same cozy feeling as a traditional game, but on the other, the table limits are lower. It was introduced in 2016 and only a handful of casinos have it as of 2022, but expect it to grow. Similar deal for stadium craps. Read more on Stadium Blackjack at Vital Vegas.
Roll to Win Craps. This new craps table has an electronic screen instead of felt. You still roll the dice, but you place your bets with a touchscreen instead of physical chips. This allows the game to be dealt with just one dealer so table minimums are lower. As of 2023, only a handful of casinos have it, but as with stadium games, expect it to grow. (More on the game from Vital Vegas.)

6:5 games are ubiquitous. Until 2003, blackjack everywhere paid 3-to-2 on naturals (ten + ace). That was replaced with 6:5 (worse for the player), which is now the dominant form. The last 3:2 single-deck game on the Strip was at Riviera in 2011,(source) and then Riviera closed. There are some multi-deck 3:2 games still on the strip in 2022, but table limits are higher, and sometimes only in the high-limit rooms, but some casinos don't offer 3:2 for any stakes.
Single-deck blackjack. There were over a hundred single-deck tables on the strip in 2011, down to only one in 2022. And only three downtown casinos still have single-deck games.
Roulette gets a third zero. The Venetian (who else?) added a third green slot to the already-bad double-zero American roulette wheel, and then the game spread like wildfire, just like 6:5 blackjack did. As of March 2022, it comprised 37% of roulette games at strip casinos.(source)
Craps gets crappier. Casino Royale did away with 100x odds on craps, and then they removed their table games altogether. 100x odds are likewise gone at Main Street Station (now 20x). On the strip there is now exactly only one game with better than 3-4-5 odds (The Strat, with 10x odds).

Hotel-Casinos

Also see the Nickel & Diming section, above.

There's now a non-smoking casino. It's Park MGM, which made the change in 2020. Yeah it's only one, but that's infinitely more than zero.
A move to boring. Casinos with cool names got boring names:

Hard Rock > Virgin (2021)
Stratosphere > The Strat (2020)
Monte Carlo > Park MGM (2018)
Sahara > SLS (2014, but then they came to their senses and went back to Sahara in 2019)

Moving away from themes. Hotel/casinos with themes like Treasure Island, Caesars Palace, and Excalibur, have toned the their themes way down, mostly retaining just the special building shape and the name. In some cases they've done away with the name too, like when Monte Carlo became Park MGM.
Adults-only. Four hotels have gone adults-only. (Circa, El Cortez, English, Lexi) This is not in a naughty way, more like a "we hate kids" kind of way.
Other name changes

Bally's > Horseshoe (2022)
San Remo > Hooters (2006) > OYO (2019)
Barbary Coast > Bill's Gamblin’ Hall (2007) > Cromwell (2014)
LVH > Westgate (2014)
Terrible's > Silver Sevens (2013)
Imperial Palace > Quad (2012) > Linq (2014)
CityCenter > Aria Campus (2019)
Aladdin > Planet Hollywood (2007)
South Coast > South Point (2006)
Binion's Horseshoe > Binion's (2005)
Las Vegas Club > Vegas Club (2004)

New casinos. New from-the-ground-up casinos:

Resorts World (Strip, 2021)
Circa (Downtown, 2020)
Downtown Grand (2013), on the site of the old Lady Luck. Lady Luck had 86'd me for counting cards (meaning I couldn't return or I'd be arrested for trespassing), does that apply to the Downtown Grand?
CityCenter. A large campus featuring a casino (Aria; Cosmopolitan is commonly thought to be part of it, but it's not), hotels, and shopping. It destroyed walking on that side of the strip. Of note, they discovered a structural problem with the high-rise Harmon Hotel before it opened, and they dismantled the whole thing to the ground before it served a single guest, a colossal waste of money, labor, and materials.
Cosmopolitan (2010)
Aria (2009)
Encore, Palazzo, Aliante Station, Eastside Cannery (2008)
Wynn (2005)
Mandalay Bay's second tower opens as THEhotel (2004)

Casino closings

Mirage, closed in 2024, to become the new Hard Rock hotel/casino.
Tropicana closed in 2024.
New in 2023: Fontainebleu (strip), Wildfire (downtown,slots-only), Durango (west LV).
Bally's became Horseshoe.
Wild Wild West, slots-only, near the strip R.I.P 2022.
Westin's casino, Max, closes in 2017.
Lucky Dragon, which opened in 2016, closes in 2018. That was quick.
Mermaids, famous for their deep-fried Twinkies, this downtown slots-only casino closed in 2016 to make room for Circa.
Las Vegas Club. Closed 2015 to make way for Circa. I can't believe I never got kicked out of here for counting cards in 2002. Other downtown casinos weren't so slow on the draw.
Riviera closes in 2015. Bye-bye 98%-return slot machines.
Clarion (formerly Greek Isle) closes 2014, imploded 2015.
Gold Spike closes its casino. (2013)
The Western closes (2012). This one hurts.
Nevada Palace (2008, to become Eastside Cannery)
New Frontier (2007)
Stardust imploded (2007)
Stardust, Lady Luck, Klondike (2006)
Wildfire and Gold Spike remove their table games (2006)
Boardwalk imploded (2006)
Westward Ho, Key Largo, Stratosphere's High Roller coaster (2005)
Castaways (2004)

Real estate / casino splits. You wouldn't notice it, but starting in 2017 many big casinos started selling their real estate to outside companies, becoming tenants of the new property owners. They did this in order to free up cash to weather recessions (which, in light of COVID, seems downright prescient). Get the details on my Vegas Casino Ownership page.
The Mob left Vegas way back in the mid-80s. Where have you been? Turns out the only group too tough for the mob were the corporations.

Outside ambiance

City of Las Vegas arch. In 2022 the City erected the huge colorful "City of Las Vegas" arches at the start of the Strip by the Strat, but welcoming you as you leave the Strip towards downtown. See, you thought the Strip was in Las Vegas, but technically the Strip is in the unincorporated city of Paradise, Nevada. It doesn't become Las Vegas proper until you pass the Strat on the way to downtown.
Showgirl signs. Just north of the Vegas arch is the ginormous sign of two showgirls, ironic since shows with showgirls are a thing of the past. The original was installed in 2018, and upgraded in 2022.
Pot smoke. Marijuana was legalized in 2016, though technically it's legal to smoke only in private residences (not in public, not on the casino floor, not in your hotel room), but that doesn't stop people from lighting up anyway. The city simply reeks now.
Street performers. Starting circa 2010, musicians, magicians, and costumed entertainers perform or pose for selfies for tips. Some see this as a bad thing (since some buskers are obnoxious about hounding tourists for tips, and some are practically naked), but the problem buskers seem to be the minority.

Food

Bye bye, buffets. The buffets shut down for COVID, and post-COVID, only a handful opened again.
Finally vegetarian-friendly. On a positive note, I was always surprised at how vegetarian- and vegan-hostile Strip eateries were, for decades, especially given that 6% (1 out of 16) Americans are vegetarian or vegan (source), and that figure is even higher for other countries.(source) However, as of circa 2021, I feel that many restaurants now at least make a token effort to accommodate, and many go much further. There are also now actual fully-vegetarian options, such as Vegenation and Tacotarian. (see full list)
99¢ shrimp cocktails. Those are long gone, man.

Entertainment

Mirage volcano closed when the Mirage itself closed in 2024. Prior to the close, the dolphins left the Mirage in 2023. The ones which didn't die in captivity, anyway. This is in keeping with the trend away from captive big-animal entertainment that started with the end of Siegfried & Roy's tiger show after a tiger mauled Roy.
MSG Sphere. A new (2023) concert venue in the form of a huge motherf**king ball of light and video. This would've put Vegas on the map, if it wasn't already on the map. (Also, here's a map.)
Pinball Museum moves to LVB. The Pinball "Museum" (more like an arcade, you can play all the games) moved to Las Vegas Blvd., kind of debatable whether it's on the "Strip" since it's south of the last casino, Mandalay Bay. The move came with a big increase in space. (2021)
Allegiant Stadium and Area 15 open (2020).
T-Mobile Arena opens (2016)
Glitter Gulch strip club downtown closes (2016), to make way for the new Circa casino.
Variety shows mostly gone. The shows that gave you a mix of music, comedy, magic, and dancing, are few and far between now. Which also means:
No more showgirls. I can't think of any shows that still feature the iconic Vegas showgirls, with the revealing, sparkly outfits and the huge over-the-top headdresses. But street buskers still dress up as showgirls on the Strip and downtown to take pictures with tourists for tips.
Lounge shows mostly gone. The few that are left are off-strip. (SF Gate, 2024)
Pirate show closed. The free pirate battle shows at Treasure Island closed in 2013.

Other Non-Casino changes

The Hawaiian Marketplace across from Aria closed in 2022 and was demolished. (I miss Tamba, an Indian restaurant which was a great source of vegetarian food on the Strip.)
McCarran Airport is now Harry Reid Airport, as of 2021.
Swenson Street is now University Center Drive, as of 2019.
Welcome to Vegas sign upgrades. In 2008 they added a parking lot in the median, and in 2015 added a signalized crossing, so tourists no longer have to risk death by running across Las Vegas Blvd. for their coveted sign selfies.
The GameWorks arcade in the Showcase Mall closed in 2012. (sob)
CityCenter, a mix of hotels, condos, and retail, opened in 2009.
The High Roller roller coaster on top of the Strat is closed and removed. (2005)
Wet & Wild on the Strip closed in 2004. (I went there with the Wizard of Odds in 2001.)

Transportation

The first “Tesla Tunnel” opened as the Las Vegas Convention Center Loop in 2021, and immediately started expanding to more stations and stops, with a planned system that will cover the entire tourist area and the airport.
Double-decker buses arrived on the Strip in 2005. There was a Strip bus before that, but it wasn't bi-level.
The Monorail opened in 2004, to immediate yawns. Had they run it down the strip, it would have been awesome, but instead it runs behind the casinos, making it too inconvenient for most. It's currently set to be demolished. So, here's a both birth and death Vegas change in one fell swoop.