Electric Daisy Carnival events versus Common Sense
June 17th, 2012 at 12:26:34 AM
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Is it wise for casinos to allow such drug-oriented Rave-like events to take place in Las Vegas.
A 22 year old pre-med student, not particularly used to taking drugs, took Ecstasy at the recent EDC event, suffered parnoia-like delusions and barricaded herself in her Circus Circus hotel room as well as having removed her cell phone SIM card so she couldn't be tracked by those she thought were after her. A security card found her on the third floor roof but the suicide story will undoubtedly refer to "a Las Vegas casino" and not name Circus Circus after the usual press hacks get to work.
I just wonder what the effect on the entire town is. Do these super traffic jam events actually bring money to the casinos or just to the event promoters and drug dealers and DUI lawyers? Is the publicity so bad that the casinos should use their muscle to run the events out of town or is the money worth it?
Anyone have numbers available?
A 22 year old pre-med student, not particularly used to taking drugs, took Ecstasy at the recent EDC event, suffered parnoia-like delusions and barricaded herself in her Circus Circus hotel room as well as having removed her cell phone SIM card so she couldn't be tracked by those she thought were after her. A security card found her on the third floor roof but the suicide story will undoubtedly refer to "a Las Vegas casino" and not name Circus Circus after the usual press hacks get to work.
I just wonder what the effect on the entire town is. Do these super traffic jam events actually bring money to the casinos or just to the event promoters and drug dealers and DUI lawyers? Is the publicity so bad that the casinos should use their muscle to run the events out of town or is the money worth it?
Anyone have numbers available?
June 17th, 2012 at 12:31:23 AM
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I don't have numbers but isn't this town full of stupid people doing stupid stuff in casino hotels every weekend?
June 17th, 2012 at 12:42:25 AM
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Perhaps you are correct, but the routine stupidity never makes the headlines or the network news shows.
Police shootings on the strip, gun happy guards and cops at Costco, suicides at hotels, planking accidents at hotels ... these things make the news and may affect travel decisions.
Known traffic headaches surely affect betting patterns.
The real question is how much money is being bled away from the casino floors by these non-gambling events versus how much is being brought into town by them?
Police shootings on the strip, gun happy guards and cops at Costco, suicides at hotels, planking accidents at hotels ... these things make the news and may affect travel decisions.
Known traffic headaches surely affect betting patterns.
The real question is how much money is being bled away from the casino floors by these non-gambling events versus how much is being brought into town by them?
June 17th, 2012 at 1:45:58 AM
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The EDC visitors are not gamblers. Some of that is because the minimum EDC age is 16. The other part is that the EDC visitors are at EDC from dusk to dawn and needed most of daylight hours to recover.
To counter that, EDC hotel rooms were higher than normal weekends, even though hotels did not sell out at many properties. To give you an idea, Vegas Club got $180/night on Saturday and they actually sold out their only open tower. That is 3-4x their normal Saturday night rate. Other properties were double other June weekends.
The casinos made some more money out of the hotel but less on the floor where it matters. OTOH it drew 100,000 people a night and created tons of jobs elsewhere in the city. It must be good for the city, even if the casinos are not particularly excited about it.
There was nothing else going on in town that week besides WSOP so the casinos really had nothing to lose. I have a feeling if someone was here to gamble that weekend the hotel would take care of them as usual.
To counter that, EDC hotel rooms were higher than normal weekends, even though hotels did not sell out at many properties. To give you an idea, Vegas Club got $180/night on Saturday and they actually sold out their only open tower. That is 3-4x their normal Saturday night rate. Other properties were double other June weekends.
The casinos made some more money out of the hotel but less on the floor where it matters. OTOH it drew 100,000 people a night and created tons of jobs elsewhere in the city. It must be good for the city, even if the casinos are not particularly excited about it.
There was nothing else going on in town that week besides WSOP so the casinos really had nothing to lose. I have a feeling if someone was here to gamble that weekend the hotel would take care of them as usual.
