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Vegas was once a place for gambling and comps. Shows were first rate and the food was to die for.

Now there’s a casino at every nook and cranny while Macau is the new magnet for the high rollers.

Vegas? Resort fees, paid parking, 6-5 blackjack, lower slot payouts, crappy buffets, BAD customer service and crap for comps. It’s as though they don’t want you anymore.

I visited Macau in September, 2018, while on a week long trip to Hong Kong. We took a high speed catamaran ferry over there (37 mile trip in about 65 minutes). We visited the MGM and Wynn properties near the downtown. The minimum bet to sit at one of the tables was 1,500 Hong Kong dollars (about $200). I think we left behind 100 HKD in one of the slot machines.

That will probably be the only time I’ll ever get there.

I went to Las Vegas a lot during the 1980s and 1990s. Even from the East Coast, the airfare was practically free. I remember paying $49 for one way tickets out of Logan. The hotels were very cheap too. Inexpensive first class buffets, free parking and drinks were pretty much free in the casinos. All they wanted you to do was gamble. And even at that, you had a decent chance to come out ahead if you knew what you were doing. I learned basic strategy for Blackjack and I could sit at a table for hours and hours with just a $100 stake.

I mostly liked playing the quarter slots. With real quarters. They'd give you pails to keep your quarters in and nothing better than winning even a small jackpot and scooping all those quarters out of the tray. I think they still have some of those machines on Fremont Street. Everyplace else pays out with those paper vouchers and to me, that's not nearly as much fun. I miss the sound of those coins spilling into the trays.

Now there’s a casino at every nook and cranny while Macau is the new magnet for the high rollers.

I've owned a small amount of MGM stock for some years and it is actually doing pretty well...now. A bigger buy was Melco (Macau), which I understand makes Vegas look like podunk. But that stock, ironically, has not done so well. Part of it may due to the Chinese government cracking down from time to tome on the high rollers/tax cheats/oligarchs...whatever. The stock also vacillates with the USA/China tariff talks.

Have to concur with the 20 year observation. Although the theming was a bit Disneyfied at most places the staff usually played along. The Treasure Island naval battle has been reduced, inevitably, to a pointless T&A display with FX almost nonexistent.

It’s less Vegas and more Orlando/Myrtle Beach with smartass kids working most places and a flood of foreigners with little or no English. It seems that Saigon airlift in 1975 dropped them all in Nevada.

Food is bad and getting worse - as you say, the buffets are as bad as any at the beach. Cheap cheap cheap. Went to NYNY ‘Village’ where we’d had some good food at places in the past - it’s terrible now.

Can’t step inside a building without someone pestering you to get a players card. Discounts comps blah blah blah. Meanwhile they’re selling your personal details far and wide.

The once simple act of walking is even degraded now. Casinos have given up on grand entrances and are now sticking restaurants and bars on and over the sidewalks. Speaking of sidewalks, they’re almost impassable thanks to: (deep breath) people in superhero costumes (usually Batman), trashy ‘showgirls’ with pale skin, cellulite, fishnets and lots of tattoos (in other words, hookers who are daylighting), Mexicans STILL handing out hooker flyers and casino promo barkers.

But the worst addition is the vast increase in bums, mostly addicts, sprawled out everywhere and begging for money if they aren’t passed out. They are supposedly legal but they are ruining multi billion dollar operations.