Las Vegas – Anything for a Buck!

As you probably have already figured out, I love reading The New York Times (as well as The Wall Street Journal FYI), so I just read “Las Vegas Adapts to Reap Chinese New Year Bounty”

Zhu Yu was not the least perturbed that faux Italian frescoes — rather than Asian silk screens — decorated the ceiling of the Venetian Resort Hotel Casino hallway where he and his family watched on Saturday as a 25-foot-long red-and-yellow dragon shimmied through a traditional Chinese New Year dance. Chinese New Year is one of the most profitable times of the year for Las Vegas casinos like the Venetian, which featured a dragon dance Saturday. “Oh, it’s nothing like what we did when I was a boy in Taipei, but it’s still very exciting,” Mr. Zhu, 49, said over the din of drumbeats as the dragon paused to send good luck in the direction of those inside the high-limit baccarat room. His three daughters, all younger than 10, stood mesmerized in front of his wife. It was the Zhu family’s fourth straight year ushering in Chinese New Year in Las Vegas instead of in their home city, San Francisco.

This is a Las Vegas version of Chinese New Year,” Mr. Zhu said. “It’s its own thing, but we love it.” So do casino executives. Chinese New Year, a 15-day celebration that is set by a lunar calendar and that usually falls in late January or early February, has become one of the city’s most profitable events, drawing thousands of Asian and Asian-American visitors and hundreds of millions of their dollars each year.

The city’s tourism board does not keep statistics on the event’s economic impact, but executives with Las Vegas Sands Inc., which owns the Venetian, say more money is bet during the two-week period than at any other time during the year. “The Chinese New Year is longer than anything,” said the company’s president and chief operating officer, William P. Weidner, “and we see much higher per-player action.”

What can I say? Asians & Asian Americans just love gambling! I personally don’t like to gamble, unless you count the stock market 🙂

I love this quote:

“The highest quality players will get whatever they want. The Chinese are the highest and best quality players in the world, so they’ll have preference. We don’t care how tall you are, how short you are, how fat you are, what color you are. Green is the most important color.”

Like I said, Las Vegas – Anything for a Buck!