Green Taxi

I spent the weekend in Las Vegas with my brothers and some step-family. We love going for the Sweet 16 weekend and do the same trip every year. We stay at THE Hotel, fly in on Thursday, watch the games in the same lounge, eat at the same restaurants, gamble on the same tables and bet at the Mandalay Sportsbook, and even hit up a few of the same bars.

A consistent routine like that could be considered dull to some, but personally I love it. We have perfected many parts of the routine.

Another great feature is that it provides for excellent analysis of the slightest changes year-on-year.

The biggest change I noticed this year was not in the size of the crowd, but in the hotel prices and availability. In previous years, we have reserved our rooms as early as Christmas for this weekend, just to be safe. This year, rooms could be found the day of arrival and at bargain basement prices. The hotels are clearly struggling and the first reaction is to keep people coming no matter what the cost. The hope is that once in Vegas, inhibitions are overpowered by the insanity that is Vegas.

Which brings me to the next subject: energy. I found the Vegas energy to be less this year, even with more games than normal going to the wire right at the spread (the more money changes hands in a shorter period of time means more adrenaline in everyone). It is definitely not a ghost town, but I did feel the slight difference. It was most noticeable watching the games on Friday and Saturday. The lounge where we site is almost always full for those games, but we were able to secure our seats quite late and it never even really filled up.  The noise was less and the rowdiness was down.

The gossip of the town is The City Center project. It is owned by the MGM and jointly financed by Dubai World. The MGM is struggling to extend its financing on the deal and Dubai World wants the MGM to take more of the financial risk. While MGM made its most recent bond payment, the rumors are circulating of what could happen. Someone told me that the current plan is to finish the outside of all four main towers, but only finish the inside of one of them. While all of the structures are up and it is quite an impressive setup, the MGM is in a horrible position. The current supply of hotel rooms in the city is massive and bringing in another 4 buildings worth is not going to help at all. Add another 12,000-25,000 jobs they need to create to run them and I shudder to think of where this money is going to come from.

The scariest part of it all is the city-wide systemic risk that MGM has created. If the MGM goes bankrupt (and it could), all of these hotels would effectively be at risk:

• Bellagio
• MGM Grand
• City Center
• Excalibur
• Luxor
• Mandalay Bay
• THE Hotel
• Four Seasons at Mandalay Bay
• Mirage
• Monte Carlo
• New York New York
• Vdara
• ARIA
• Circus Circus

Yes, they are all owned by the MGM. Vegas could collapse with an MGM bankruptcy. Hopefully they could work themselves through the bankruptcy, but in this current economic environment that is not the easiest thing in the world to do.

Back to the weekend. The best part about the weekend were the games and cheap(er) tables. We were able to find $5 craps tables within a 1-2 hotel walking distance, and $15 blackjack and $10 craps at the Mandalay with room to spare at the tables on both Friday and Saturday nights. No need to walk around for hours searching on a weekend night. The tables are there.

The games were great. Villanova almost blew it with that ridiculous full court play and Mizzou did blow it by missing a layup at the buzzer while down 7 to not cover (-6 spread). Those were great fun to watch. Throw in seeing probably 12 of the top 16 true best teams in the nation play each other and it made for great college basketball.

There are positives and negatives to the new Vegas. Get it while it lasts.

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