Conversations with Vegas hotels and other unpleasant news

I was in Vegas 10 times last year, personally I hate the city but I go for client meetings and conventions. I’ve been calling and asking about capacity and availability of new bookings, pretending to be a tourist and the feedback from hotel concierge is this:

first, hotels and casinos will function at 25 – 50% capacity. Buffets will likely not be open. Shows are currently booking reservations and restaurants will be open. Card tables will be open, high rollers are making heavy bookings right now. Slots will be separated with plexiglass dividers. If you’ve ever been on a casino floor and smelled the smoke then you know the air circulation is poor, IE dividers wont help.

Second, I was advised to make my reservations now because bookings are coming in and they may actually run out of space. Expect a normal (not convention) week crowd in June. I’ve executed enterprise level sales for many years and know how to tell when I’m being sold vs when I’m gaining information and it’s a 50/50 mix if sales pressure and truth.

In my experience Vegas can be a playground for the wealthy, but it’s mostly a playground for the middle class and poor. Specifically the folks who dont care about / believe in the virus. I live in NYC, if people in the new England / tri-state area are going then so is covid 19. If people from middle america are going too then you can be sure that PPE rules will not be adhered to.

Keep in mind as well that these are the same gamblers who have now turned to the market instead of sports betting.

Thoughts? Short term calls? Long term puts? My guess is Vegas will be one of the first cities to close during the second wave and an early indication (and by indication I mean red f*cking flag warning) for the rest of the country.

The other unpleasant news – on a side note, I’m pretty heavily involved in the measures here in NYC to curb the virus at an executive level and things are pretty bad. Specifically the anticipated homeless numbers for fall 2020 in NYC alone are in the millions – currently homless population of NYC is +/- 65k. Anticipated monthly cost per state for homeless services come fall 2020 is $9BB per month per state or $450BB monthly nationwide. I very much hope that the information I have on this is incorrect, but if it does get bleak how do we best capitalize?