Las Vegas Casinos Fighting Tax Increase

Photo from Great Las Vegas Homes

There's a constant struggle, a sort of love-hate relationship Las Vegas residents have with casinos. We fight them when they get too close to our neighborhoods, but once they're there, we go. We rarely visit the strip, and sometimes forget it's there, but we enjoy the proximity. And let's face it, without them, almost nobody would live here.

Just the same, as George Carlin used to say, there's a reason the big casinos on the strip are so BIG. . .they make tons and tons of money. And they make some of it from the residents of the valley. By the way, if anyone you know likes to gamble, but claims they've never gotten carried away, they're lying. We all do, it's just a matter of degrees. The only people who haven't helped the casinos get bigger are the ones who don't gamble at all.

I might feel a little more sympathy for them if there wasn't the same sort of uber-mergers in the industry that we have in the rest of the country. Pick an industry, and you'll find a handful of companies that own most of it. In Las Vegas, it's Harrah's and MGM on the strip, and Station Casinos and Boyd Group off the strip. There are exceptions, but a majority of the properties are owned by those four companies. If they've gotten that huge, they should be able to scare up some change. Just my 2 cents (and the occasional paycheck). . .

[Excerpt]

Casinos fight efforts to raise Nevada gambling tax

Plans to ask Nevada voters to raise taxes on casinos have alarmed the Las Vegas gambling industry, which is scrambling to block initiatives and come up with other ways to fund projects from education to new roads in the tax-averse, fast-growing state. [snip]

"If it gets on the ballot, voters will pass it," said Bill Lerner, an analyst at Wall Street firm Deutsche Bank. . .

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