A&E

Our ever-evolving casino industry is too smart and nimble to fall before a virus

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Illustration: Photos by Wade Vandervort / Staff

The first casino I clearly remember visiting was the Silver Slipper, sometime in the late 1970s. My parents were regulars at the Desert Inn across the street, and on this family trip—the first of several we made throughout the ’70s and ’80s—they took me to the Slipper for the breakfast buffet.

Immediately, I fell in love with the Slipper’s cheese blintzes and helped myself to several. I couldn’t believe that this place had, without knowing a thing about me, divined there was something I wanted more than anything and arranged for me to have as much of it as I wanted. It was arcane magic, repeated across the entire town. Arcade games? Circus Circus gave me a vast room full of them, surrounded by a genuine carnival midway. Swimming pools? I could spend an entire afternoon floating in a pool the size of a baseball diamond. I was 10, maybe 11 years old, and Las Vegas’ hospitality industry adapted itself to my tastes.

My parents and sister moved to Las Vegas in 1988, and I’ve lived in this Valley since 1990 (absent a 10-year stay in Seattle, 2002-2012). I mention this because Las Vegas changed a lot during the ’90s and early 2000s—not just in size and population, but in terms of what the city put on the table to draw in visitors.

From 1990 to 2000, we watched the MGM Grand, Bellagio, Mandalay Bay and others spring out of the ground as if electrified. We watched the “Family Vegas” era come and go, taking with it two roller coasters (leaving two behind), three high-tech simulator rides and a full theme park. In the ’80s, there was one upscale shopping mall on the Strip, the Fashion Show; today there are several. And as mind-blowing a realization as it might be, there was a time when our casinos had no nightclubs at all.

Perhaps no other experience industry has experimented as daringly as Las Vegas’ hospitality set. Over the years, the casinos of Las Vegas have given us competitive jai alai; live tapings of The Hollywood Squares; motorcycles jumping over buildings; yearly conventions tailored to nearly every interest, from RollerCon to the International Pizza Expo; walk-through shark tanks; WNBA basketball; two Guggenheim Museums under the same roof; a New Year’s Eve street party that rivals Times Square’s in its ambition; a clockwork volcano and too many more attractions to name. I’ve very nearly lost count of all the minor miracles I’ve experienced in Vegas’ casinos: I’ve shaken hands with Muhammad Ali, seen Elvis Costello performing with The Roots, even sat in the captain’s chair of the Federation Starship Enterprise.

Our hometown industry is too smart, nimble and chameleonlike to be undone by the coronavirus. The Strip and Downtown have survived a recession, fuel shortages and terrorism with scarcely any continued, outward evidence of their occurrence. And while this virus will change things for a while—a loss of jobs, fewer machines on the gaming floor, guests intermittently masked—it won’t be long at all until our industry finds its level.

Maybe some experiences, like buffets, will stay gone for good, even after a vaccine is discovered—but we’ll scarcely notice, because our casinos will have moved on to the next great thing. And the industry’s most recent innovation—the integration of professional sports to Vegas’ entertainment portfolio—has only begun to transform the entire city.

Las Vegas’ casinos will keep going. This virus won’t take them down. The reason Vegas is what it is—the reason people come here to gamble, eat and enjoy themselves, despite the proliferation of online and tribal gaming—is because no other industry, no other city has more steadfastly devoted itself to making sure its visitors have a good time. And if it happens that the (hopefully temporary) future of entertainment is built upon social distancing, our casinos will fill that distance with accommodating comforts and cool things to do. If that means building a swimming pool the size of 10 baseball diamonds, Las Vegas will get to digging it out.

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