It's something they do to make people feel like they want to play more as opposed to looking around and being distracted. For one thing, you go into a lot of casinos, they have lower, lower ceilings, and that's a gaming thing. On its luxurious aesthetic: 'It's just beautiful,' says Curtis.

'And this is before international tourism has fully come back to Las Vegas, which, if it does, would soften any kind of flattening that we might be seeing in the market.'

On how room rates and gaming revenue remain high after the post-pandemic visitor boom: 'Consumers have more disposable income than the news coverage would reflect and that's manifested by the fact that Wynn Las Vegas and Encore can demand and get $400 a night for a room,' says McKee. But you can see how long it took them to come up with that sort of capital and for the market to be sufficiently recovered - for that to be worthwhile.' Wykoff wasn't the person to do it, the Soffers did so at a cost of $1.7 billion. It was a question of sitting on it until somebody came along who was deep-pocketed enough to make that happen. there was so much constructed and so much had been invested that it was too much trouble to take it down. On how the Fontainebleau avoided implosion during its years in stasis: 'Well, it was just too big to be allowed to fail,' says McKee. Two gaming experts - Casino Life editor-in-chief David McKee and Las Vegas Advisor publisher Anthony Curtis - weighed in on the property's long-awaited opening, and whether its high-end product makes sense for Las Vegas. Reviews are raving about its luxury, service and, in a city where all casinos start to look alike, especially to locals, its uniqueness. Others said that more than a decade in the elements would render it useless or at least less than the luxury resort it was intended to be.Īfter it opened last week, those doubters have mostly gone silent. Some argued it should be torn down, that it was a skyline eyesore. The Clark County Fire Department used the skyscraper, more than two football fields in height, for fire practice.Īside from that, it sat mothballed for 14 years. They were on the north end of the Strip, which, if you’d said was cursed because it’s tried for years to become more popular, few would doubt you.Įspecially when it came to the Fontainebleau.Ĭonstruction on the 3,600-room mega-resort stopped in 2009 during the Great Recession - even though it was 90 percent done and cost about $2 billion. But they weren’t near Caesars or Bellagio or Wynn.

If you were on the Las Vegas Strip last week, you might have seen the crowds. If you watched football on Sunday, you saw the ads.

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