A New York Times article is highlighting the downturn currently affecting Las Vegas.  I quote:

“For decades, this gambling center seemed nearly immune to the economic swings of the rest of the country. But these days, the city built on excess is seeing a troubling sign: moderation. Gambling revenue and hotel occupancy are down. Resorts are slashing room rates and offering coupons or free nights. Casino operators are firing hundreds of workers, and their stock prices have plummeted since October. Credit is drying up for hotel and condominium projects planned before the slowdown arrived.”

However, I think some of us in the online bingo world may have an insight into this situation, most likely due to witnessing a similar decline taking place amongst our cousins in the land-based bingo industry.

I don’t think it’s any real secret that many gamblers are taking their game online and that the growth we have seen in online gaming, particularly in the market for people who play bingo online, may be contributing to a slowdown in land-based gaming.

Naturally, there will be a huge resistance by land-based gabling operators to admit that their current downturn is in any way linked to the upsurge in online gambling.  We’ve seen this in the reactions by land-based bingo here in the UK where online bingo and online bingo halls are hardly ever acknowledged as a reason for that sectors downturn.

There are no real numbers out there yet correlating a decline in traditional gambling with the move to its online variation, but I think any study in this direction will uncover some interesting facts about today’s gaming customers – it makes more sense these days to save the cost of a trip to a casino by simply logging on to their favourite site instead.

Written by John Witherspoon – Visit the best UK online bingo site. Bingostreet.com is your ultimate source for the best bingo games online.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 7th, 2008 at 6:44 am and is filed under Online Bingo. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.