The end of May saw the reopening of casinos and hotels across Sin City following a few months of lockdown and closures, but there were concerns that the reopening may be a little too early and that doing so may cause to further issues down the road – well it appears that some of those concerns were well founded, as it seems despite the big success of the reopening there could be some longer lasting damage.
The day following the reopening of many of these locations, a lot of videos were shown where an individual would walk through a location to see crowds of people all huddled together around tables and bars – although it had been made a requirement for employees to wear masks, the same hadn’t been true for guests as very few masks were in sight and social distancing was almost non existent. Almost two weeks to the day following, Las Vegas saw a huge surge in positive coronavirus cases and experienced highest day on day increases each day following forcing change as it was then made a requirement for guests to also wear masks and adhere to some social distancing – but had the damage already been done?
It’s clear the demand for attendance was there as many were looking to get out and blow off some steam following a three month period of being stuck at home. Throughout this period of time, mobile casino alternatives have been performing extremely well as sports betting was all but non-existent during the cancellations and other establishments remained closed, and despite changes forcing some players to seek alternatives such as a regulation change within the UK, these USA casinos for UK players provided welcomed relief during lockdown.
Given the strength of mobile alternatives and the current situation in Vegas, it has to be asked whether or not the past month could damage casino attendance for the gambling hub in the long term – the US is still dealing with the pandemic and international travel is still at a stand still for many but change is expected to come, it had been suggested that 50% of all Vegas tourism had been made up from international visitors outside of the US but as uncertainty rises around safety there are growing concerns that guests may be less interested in visiting if they feel their health may be at risk for doing so.
With that being said, as mentioned changes have been made to add a little more strictness to the running operations – it’ll take another week or two until figures come back and it can be seen if the changes are successful and numbers drop, but now may also be a crucial time to ensure safety into the future or risk the possibility that if summer travel becomes available guests may choose to holiday elsewhere – especially if the US as a whole and individual states are still now struggling to bring the pandemic under control and limit exposure as much as other parts of the world have done.