VEGAS WANTS TO KNOW WHERE EVERYBODY WENT. I HAVE THE RECEIPT FROM MY LAST BUFFET. Downtown Las Vegas is looking a little lonely. The numbers back it up. Visitation was down 4.3% in August. Passengers through Harry Reid down 9%. Downtown gaming win down 3%. They're cutting room rates and the rooms still aren't filling. And somewhere in a corporate office on the Strip, a man in a $4,000 suit is asking how this could possibly happen. Sir. Let me help. Vegas used to be the deal. Sinatra, Dean and Sammy at the Sands. A 99-cent shrimp cocktail downtown at the Golden Gate. Cheap rooms, cheap buffets, loose slots, free drinks if you sat down at a table. They knew you'd lose money at the tables, so they made everything else feel like a steal. That was the whole business model. And it worked for fifty years. Then the MBAs showed up. (I'm allowed to say that. I have one.) Room rates went up. Then they added a resort fee. Fifty bucks a night for a pool you won't use and Wi-Fi that drops every time you open your laptop. Parking that used to be free? Now it's not. Blackjack used to pay 3:2. Now a lot of tables pay 6:5, which is a polite way of saying they shaved your winnings and hoped you wouldn't do the math. And the buffet. The buffet used to be the cheapest meal in America. Now the fancy ones on the Strip run close to $90 a person on a weekend, and the crab legs still taste like the freezer. Who thought that money train would run forever? You squeezed the golden goose until it filed for divorce. Vegas casino bosses have pulled off something I didn't think was possible. They made McDonald's leadership look like value heroes. At least the Big Mac doesn't come with a resort fee. I still end up in Vegas once a year for work. I didn't say I like it. I hate the room rates. I don't eat on the Strip. Get in an Uber, go to Spring Mountain Road, and eat your way through Chinatown. Some of the best Asian food in the country is sitting in strip malls a mile from the casinos, at a third of the price. The locals know. Now you do too. And the desert is still a desert. It's hot, it's dry, my hair hates it, and the whole place still looks like a showgirl's jewelry box exploded. There's exactly one thing on the Strip I'd fight you for. The Peppermill. Neon, mirrors, velvet booths, plates the size of hubcaps and a drink so big it needs two straws and a designated driver. I go every single year. I order too much, I share it with my coworkers or my customers, and we pass that giant drink around like it's 1978. That's my Vegas. You can keep the rest of it. 🦋