(The Center Square) — Las Vegas casinos are betting on tighter budgets for their operations as a post-pandemic boom slows and morphs into a trickle of layoffs.
Even as the country gambles at historic levels, casino employees are at risk of losing their jobs.
“This seems to be part of a long-term trend to try to keep leaner operations that began during the [Great] Recession,” Amanda Belarmino, an assistant professor at University of Nevada at Las Vegas’ College of Hospitality, told the Las Vegas Review Journal. “Casinos tend to try to find ways to make strategic cuts that will not impact service quality.”
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But after the devastation the COVID-19 pandemic dealt the Las Vegas Strip, the area has experienced a rebound beyond the pre-pandemic economy since 2021.
While Nevada and the Las Vegas Strip’s gambling industry income declined in 2024, largely due to new union contracts and around 6,000 new employees state-wide, revenues reached a record high $31.5 billion.
Nationwide, the gambling industry grew for the fourth straight year in 2024 to $71.9 billion in revenue, but much of this growth has been attributed to the online gambling world.
The worry around the Las Vegas Strip is that human employees could be replaced as technology advances.
MGM Resorts has recently let go of several dozen employees in multiple rounds of layoffs, with concierge positions in six of the company’s nine Strip locations being fully removed. MGM Resorts reported that their digital concierge service oversees more than 70,000 conversations – monthly.
Artificial intelligence operations have also increased on the Strip. AI is being used to help design ideal floor plans in casinos and track gamblers, as Business Insider reported.
“In general, increases in revenue have outpaced increases in payroll,” wrote the UNLV Center for Gaming Research in an April 2024 report. “Casino resort employees produced proportionally more revenue now than they did in the past.”
As technology advances make casinos more efficient at a lower cost, employees are at risk of losing out on some positions, as the Strip has begun to see.
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At the same time, the industry as a whole is shifting online. While the Strip is still the largest American gaming market, the rapid growth of the sports betting and online gambling world poses a potential threat to Las Vegas.
The Center Square did not hear back from a request for comment by the Nevada Resort Association.