Here at Slots Play Casinos, we are hearing about a decline in casino visits to Las Vegas, Atlantic City, and South Mississippi. As a follower of mainly online casino gaming, we also try to follow trends in land-based casino play. We would like to report that the three main land-based casino hubs are still in their golden era but that is simply not the case.
Las Vegas Still Gets Millions of Visitors
Overall, tourism to Las Vegas is still in the tens of millions. In 2025, about 38.5 million visitors came to Las Vegas. The catch is that a lot of them came for professional sports, restaurants, shows, and to use Las Vegas as a jumping-off point for tourism in the surrounding area.
One night in Vegas has become a stopping off point for travelers to and from the national and state parks in Nevada, Utah, and Arizona. The people who come to Vegas for any of the above reasons might spend a few minutes on the casino floor, especially since they have to traverse the casino to get to the hotel.
But a lot of people have learned that online casino gaming far surpasses land-based casino play in many areas, and especially in the return to player rate in several games. So, people have learned that a night in Vegas is less about the casinos and much more about everything else it has to offer.
Tourism in Vegas is in Genuine Decline
In 2025, there was a 7.5% decline in visitors to Las Vegas, and the decline has continued in 2026 with about 2% fewer visitors per month year to year. The big, fancy Las Vegas casinos are hurting. Because their expenses are so high, they have had to raise prices and lower the return to player rate in games where they can do so.
This is creating a perfect storm, feeding the phenomenon of fewer and fewer visitors to Vegas casinos. Two examples here will suffice. First, the famous casino buffets were the talk of the town (and the country) for generations. Where a great buffet meal was at one time about $10, and players could get a voucher for a free buffet meal, the buffets now run about $50.
Crazy! Las Vegas now has high level restaurants in many different cuisines and a single meal at one of the better restaurants does not cost $50!
Second, the famous discount prices for hotel rooms in Vegas are a thing of the past. Hotels in Vegas have gone to the high-end price range, but the quality of the rooms has not kept pace.
The Las Vegas Mobile Gaming Irony
This is, in some way, a sign of decline in casino gaming in Las Vegas, but it doesn’t involve higher prices. Instead, Las Vegas hotels and casinos are trying to lure online casino gamers for a long weekend at the casino.
Conferences and conventions still go to Las Vegas. The people who play at online casinos and the people who go to conferences and conventions have chosen mobile gaming platforms as their go-to way to play. To that end, a number of Las Vegas hotels now offer mobile casino gaming in the hotel.
Gamers are not simpletons. They know a sad and pathetic situation when they see one. And for a Las Vegas casino to offer mobile casino play in the hotel is a sad comment on the state of casino gaming in the city.
Atlantic City and Urban Decline
When casino gaming was legalized in Atlantic City, they had the entire mid-Atlantic and New England to draw players from. For a few decades, Atlantic City was a happy casino-based playground for adults.
Eventually, the pressure from other locales in the vast area around Atlantic City became too much for Atlantic City to stem. The rise of casinos on Native American land was the trigger for states and cities to allow land-based casinos in their jurisdictions.
Unlike Las Vegas, Atlantic City was not a growing city with a solid economic base apart from the casinos. There are no big-league teams in Atlantic City, nor are any clamoring to relocate there. Even the forlorn Chicago Bears are talking about relocating to….Indiana! Just across the road from Illinois.
As the Casinos Declined Urban Blight Took Over
So, as the casinos began their decline in the 1960’s, Atlantic City started to take on the appearance of many urban areas in decline. This meant that the more affluent moved out and the less affluent people moved in. The economy was based on service jobs, which are low-paying jobs.
Outside of the Boardwalk, Atlantic City is no longer a safe community, especially at night. In the poorly lit areas between casinos, there are sometimes people waiting for tourists who are often a bit too drunk to be out at night.
While the Boardwalk is still full of people well into the wee hours of the morning, under the Boardwalk is a place where smart people don’t go at night.
So, unlike Las Vegas, which has a number of happy ways for tourists to have a good time, Atlantic City is a casino boom or bust place, and in recent years, it has been busting a lot more than it has been booming.
Mississippi and Casino Decline
The area where most of the land-based casinos in Mississippi are is called Tunica. They once had several dozen casinos. They drew players from the Dallas and Houston areas, from New Orleans, from Memphis, and the other smaller cities in Tennessee: Nashville, Chattanooga, and so on. They drew players from Atlanta.
Much of this bygone day’s casino trade is gone.
People who are inclined to travel to south Mississippi are much more likely these days to travel for outdoor activities, and great restaurants for which Louisiana is known.
People driving to south Mississippi might take a full day or two exploring the quaint towns along the way. The deep south is not the deep south of 60 years ago, so all kinds of people are welcome to the small towns of Mississippi.
All of this means that there is a strong downward thrust in casino gaming in South Mississippi. As land-based casinos have such high operating costs, there will be closures, as there already were with the Bally group of casinos.
While south Mississippi was once a sleepy backwater until the casinos were built, it will never be the same kind of sleepy backwater it once was. Until the fallout of decreased casino visits reaches the bottom of its downward spiral, people will still hold high hopes for a recovery.
There will not be a recovery for South Mississippi. There will continue to be casinos there, but they will not deliver the excitement they once did. The area has to rethink its attractiveness to tourists, and that will likely take the form of adventure tourism, food tourism, historical tourism, and so on.
Slots Play Casinos Continues to Extoll the Virtues of Online Casino Gaming
Our bailiwick is online casinos. Still, we cannot celebrate thy slow and steady decline in land-based casino gaming. We feel that land-based casinos do still have a place in the casino world, but we are realistic as well. We know that the place land-based casinos will occupy will be much smaller than it is today.
You can learn a lot about casino gaming through our blog.
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