This Week in Gambling: Closing the Las Vegas Strip to cars?
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It sounds absurd to think that the Las Vegas Strip could actually be closed to cars. But believe it or not, it’s already happened once this year. And based on the feedback from tourists and locals, it was pretty cool. During the NFL Draft, which took place off the Strip behind LINQ in April, The Strip was closed to traffic for three days. While that was obviously a temporary move, county officials say it was met with a mostly positive response.
Now, a state lawmaker has put forth a bill to make the move permanent. If approved, it would close the Las Vegas Strip to vehicles on weekend morning, giving access to pedestrians who want to walk, run, or bike. If that feedback is positive as well, the ban could grow. If that happens, it’s possible that there will eventually be no cars on the Las Vegas Strip at all. What would that look like? Well, we could see the area become something similar to the Fremont Street Experience, only on a much larger scale, of course.
A glimmer of hope in a mostly dim economic outlook finds Atlantic City casinos have joined the gambling revenue party. Even as the threat of recession looms on the horizon, profits for the East Coast gambling mecca hit over $440 million for April, which is the highest since early 2019. The numbers were published by the New Jersey Division of Gaming Enforcement and show that despite the continued explosion of sports betting across America, it’s been the Atlantic City casinos that have generated to most profit.
Gamblers have been returning to casinos in droves to make bets in person, even though online gambling is still doing well. In addition to land based and online casinos, horse tracks in the state also helped the revenue numbers attain their pre-pandemic numbers.
