While Strip casinos and resorts remain the top draws in Las Vegas, the city’s off-Strip venues are doing well and have strong outlooks.
Once the host site of the World Series of Poker, the historic Binion’s poker room has one thing most Las Vegas properties lack – nostalgia.
Many of the most famous and historic pokers games were held in the Binion’s poker room, and it continues to attract top professional and amateur poker players from around the globe.
World Series of Poker Media Director Nolan Dalla told the Las Vegas Sun the Binion’s Horseshoe was the “Wrigley Field or Fenway Park of casinos” during its heyday.
Binion’s created the World Series of Poker in 1970, when it invited six of the world’s top poker players to compete for the title.
Binion’s hasn’t hosted the World Series of Poker since 2005, after Harrah’s bought the casino in order to acquire the tournament in 2004 and transferred it to the Rio. Harrah’s then sold Binion’s to MTR Gaming Group.
TLC Casino Enterprises bought Binion’s in 2009, and while the World Series of Poker likely never will return, it’s poker room remains a popular draw.
Another popular draw in Downtown Las Vegas doesn’t involve gambling, but it is drawing shows that normally would have played on the Las Vegas Strip.
Located about a mile west of the Fremont Street Experience, The Smith Center initially provided Las Vegas residents with a high-quality performing arts center without having to pay ticket prices geared more toward wealthy tourists and hard-working locals.
The Smith Center opened in 2012 and now hosts a variety of traveling Broadway productions that previously found themselves mostly playing at casinos on the Las Vegas Strip.
Popular touring shows like Wicked and Book of Mormon now play at The Smith Center for weeks-long runs. In the past, such shows only would have found potential venues on the Las Vegas Strip.
With the planned closing of Jersey Boys at the Paris casino, the Las Vegas Strip soon will have only two former Broadway productions Rock of Ages and Million Dollar Quartet, along with off-Broadway shows Menopause the Musical and Evil Dead The Musical.
Most tickets to shows at The Smith Center are sold to locals, but they also are available to tourists, who account for about 20 percent of its ticket sales.
The continued popularity of Binion’s and new attractions like The Smith Center are among the many off-Strip attractions that have gaming industry analysts seeing a lot of green away from the Las Vegas Strip.
Locals-focused Red Rock Resorts, its $914 million in market capitalization, and recent moves to buy the Aliante and two Cannery casinos indicate a strong outlook for the locals market in Clark County.
The local economy is undergoing significant growth and diversification, including the addition of the $1 billion Faraday Future electric car manufacturing facility, which is slated to open in 2018 in North Las Vegas.
That has market analysts giving mostly positive outlooks for growth over the next several years, as many stalled construction projects across the Las Vegas Valley have been revived under new investors able to obtain financing due to the market’s promising outlook.
The Las Vegas locals market posted a 1.1 percent year-to-year increase in April, and the local unemployment rate has fallen to 6.1 percent, down from a recession-era high of 14.1 percent in 2010.
Some 63 straight months of job growth have bolstered the local economy by adding 170,000 new, mostly full-time jobs averaging more than $20 per hour in pay.
The local job market is expected to grow by another 100,000 jobs by the end of 2017, as work on the Faraday Future plant and many Strip-related developments continue moving forward.
Among them are the $2.3 billion expansion of the Las Vegas Convention Center, the development of Genting Berhad’s Resorts World Las Vegas property, Wynn Resorts planned water park, and the potential construction of a 65,000-seat stadium with a retractable roof.
Even the former Fontainebleau Las Vegas is expected to be sold to developers by the end of the year, and would create thousands more jobs well into the future.
The strengthened local economy and Boyd Gaming’s focus on the locals market resulted in a 5 percent revenue gain during the first quarter, with Boyd Gaming’s EBITDA increasing by 14 percent.
So far this year, Boyd Gaming is outpacing its strong performance last year, when it posted a 3 percent revenue gain and 9 percent rise in EBITDA.
Beyond helping Boyd Gaming, the Las Vegas economy is poised to top its best year ever – 2007.
That year, Las Vegas set records for number of conventions held at 23,847, a 94 percent hotel occupancy rate for nearly 133,000 hotel rooms, and an overall occupancy rate of 90.4 percent when including motel rooms.
McCarran International Airport also set a record of 47.7 million passengers handled, while the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority collected a then-record $219.71 million in room taxes. Clark County also posted a recorded $10.87 billion in gaming revenues.
The Great Recession decimated the Las Vegas economy, but it largely has recovered, replacing some 175,000 jobs lost with 170,000 new jobs through the end of this year.
Occupancy rates are up at the city’s 150,000 hotel rooms, which averaged just shy of 90 percent last year as Las Vegas set a visitation record of 42.31 million.
The record number of visitors generated a record $254.44 million in room tax revenues, and are helping to convince banks and others to finance the many projects underway along the Las Vegas Strip and elsewhere.
Nevada’s officials estimate 100,000 jobs are expected to be added through next year, as many Las Vegas development projects reach full construction activity. Up to $6.15 billion in new construction projects planned to start by 2018, according to the LVCVA.
