Las Vegas Scams and Ripoffs

Last update: October 9, 2024

In the last few years Vegas visitors have had to contend with a raft of new nickel-and-diming techniques, and adding to those annoyances are outright scams and ripoffs.  I'll run down the biggest ones here.

Fake hotel prices

Hotels advertise one price and then charge another.  All casino/hotels properties tack on a gratuitous "resort fee" for each day of your stay, separate from the room fee.  They'll advertise $70/night in big huge letters but when you go to check out you'll see a $40/night or so resort fee.

Fake marijuana

There are a number of shops along the strip and downtown which sell straight up fake weed.  They're taking advantage of the fact that most tourists don't know that while pot can be sold legally in Vegas now, it can't be sold on or near the casinos.  So they sell fake crap.

Timeshares

You probably couldn't afford to buy a luxury condo, but you could probably afford to buy 1/52 of one.  That is, you buy the right to stay in it for one week a year, and 51 other people do the same.  There are timeshare condos all around the Vegas strip, which means there are timeshare hawkers all around the Vegas strip, beckoning you with their telltale mating call, “How long are you guys in town for?”  They need to make sure you're not leaving the next day, because if you are, then you can't attend the sales presentation.

The problem with timeshares is that they're horribly, horribly overpriced, and come with a raft of hidden fees.  It's so bad that tons of regretful buyers are trying to unload their timeshares at a steep discount on resale sites, including eBay.  In fact, if you really have your heart set on a timeshare, buying a resale is the best way to get one, because you can get it at a fraction of the cost as buying it new from the developer.

The hawkers will try to lure you with free show tickets if you attend a presentation.  It's not worth it.  They say the preso will take 90 minutes but they lie, it's really at least three hours, which will seriously eat into your vacation time.  Better to just buy your own show tickets.

If you go to the sales meeting, the salesperson will use funny math to make it look like you could get a timeshare for the same or less than you'd spend on your hotel.  Don't fall for it.  Again, if it really seems like a good deal to you (and I promise you, it's not), then buy the same timeshare at a deep discount online from someone trying to get rid of theirs.

Traditional games replaced with worse versions that look the same

Casinos have been ratcheting down the odds on the games.  You lose so quickly that the games aren't even fun any more.  The new games look the same at first glance, but they're absolutely not the same as the traditional games, which are all but gone.

1. In blackjack, naturals used to pay 3:2.  Now they pay only 6:5 at most tables, making the odds about four times worse.
2. The house edge on roulette used to be about 5%, now it's 8%, or 60% worse.
3. Lots of slot machines have fake persistence jackpots.  A slot with real persistence means that as you play, a small jackpot grows and must hit when it reaches a certain level, to entice you to keep playing.  On the fake persistence machines, the graphics show a jackpot seemingly growing (like a pot of gold getting fuller and fuller), but it's just for show, you never get closer to hitting it.

My site sponsor, Bovada Online Casino, would want me to mention that they have the traditional games with good odds, and for low stakes, like $1 blackjack.  (I'd personally point out that you can also play their games with fake money, so you don't have to risk losing real money.)

Sex workers who don't provide services, or who steal from you

Workers at strip clubs and massage parlors are notorious for getting you to believe that they're gonna get naughty with you, but they just take your money without actually doing so.  Here's a story from one visitor:

After a drunken night at a strip club, my buddy and I hailed a taxi cab at 3am to take us home. The taxi driver knew we were drunk and horny and convinced us to let him drop us off at some “AMAZING other place with GORGEOUS girls”.

Turns out the place was a phony massage parlor. Yes, the girls working there were gorgeous. But they bait you into paying more and more money and then you end up just getting a weak massage where they just massage your elbows, toes, and your ear lobes (literally). And then a giant 400 lb dude that looks like Michael Clark Duncan, escorts you out of the building thru a side door leading to a dark alley, after they just suckered you out of $500. (Reddit) 

Theft from customers by prostitutes is rampant, because they know the customers are reluctant to go to the police because they'd have to admit they broke the law by hiring a prostitute.  It could be worse than theft, many customers have suffered violence at the hands of prostitutes or their pimps.

Oh, and the pictures of models in the ads on the trucks and the cards are fake.  They don't work for the agencies.

Service fees on restaurant tabs

Some Vegas restaurants add a bullshit "service fee" to their tabs, which you'll notice only if you scrutinize the bill closely.  You can usually get them to take it off if you complain about it, since the restaurants know they're scamming, and are just banking on the fact that most customers won't notice.

Related, sometimes they add the tip automatically without telling you, and they're certainly not going to bring it to your attention if you tip on top of that.

Your destination burned down

Cheating is notorious among taxi drivers.  Drivers taking the long way from the airport to the hotels (driving up the fare) was such a problem that the Nevada taxi commission finally instituted flat-rate pricing for such trips.

But the shenanigans didn't end there.  Ask your driver to go to a certain place (like a restaurant), and he might lie and tell you, "Oh, that place burned down.  But I know a great place and I'll take you there," and he'll start going there before you agree.  That's because the restaurant or wherever he wants to take you will give him a kickback for taking you there.  Insist on going to your preferred destination, and when you arrive and it isn't burned down, well, then you don't have to tip, so you saved some money, and your driver got some karma.