Nevada will come back stronger than ever. That’s the hope and expectation of anyone who lives or works in the state’s gaming industry. After all, we’ve weathered tough times in Nevada over the past 30 years and have always come back.

But is it different this time?

Last month, Las Vegas economist John Restrepo told us that it will take six months of improving employment figures for him to be convinced that the economy was rebounding and an end was in sight for the recession. Restrepo knows his stuff. He’s been following trends in Nevada for more than 20 years and has seen almost everything.

But even he has never seen anything like this.

Nevada was kind of the “canary in the coal mine” when it came to the economic downturn. We started feeling the pinch months ahead of other states. When our booming real estate market began to slump, it was merely a harbinger of bad things to come. The residential real estate market soon impacted commercial real estate, which in turn slammed casino projects.

Today, we’ve seen dozens of hotel/condominium/casino developments either cancelled or delayed indefinitely. Thousands of people have been laid off and Nevada has one of the highest unemployment rates in the country.

This is not how we planned it. Nevada was supposed to continue to grow and expand. The casinos were going to add thousands of employees and at least as many hotel rooms. Our communities were expected to improve and bring quality education to our children. Now that’s all fallen by the wayside.

But now is not the time to wallow in self-pity. Now is not the time to point fingers. And now is definitely not the time to become divided and segmented.

Now is the time to come together to figure out how we’re going to get out of this. Yes, Nevada has always rebounded from difficult times, but there are some new realities that must be faced and surmounted.

Restrepo said he feared we’d never again see a time when people would spend money as freely as they had in recent years. He said there wouldn’t be the laissez faire attitude displayed by visitors to Vegas anymore. So what are we to do?

The answer is simple. Gambling is as American as apple pie and now it is almost as widespread as apple pie. You’ll find gambling in almost every state in the nation. A wagering opportunity is within one hour of 90 percent of the nation. It is no longer unique to Nevada.

Nevada needs to focus on what we offer over and above gambling. For far too long, Nevada has depended only on gaming to attract visitors. Now, we must focus on our great natural attractions such as Lake Tahoe, Valley of Fire, the Great Basin National Park, Lake Mead, the Hoover Dam and more. We need to redouble our efforts to host special events such as championship fights—boxing or mixed martial arts—superstar entertainment and unique gatherings such as the Burning Man Festival. We need to overcome the now national disdain for business meetings and conventions held in Nevada.

We’ve done it before. But it has always hinged on gaming and depended upon the scarcity of gaming in the rest of the country. We have to go back and examine what happened when gambling was legalized in Atlantic City in the late 1970s. That was the last time I can remember that there was some serious fear that Nevada would dry up and disappear as a result.

Some serious soul-searching went on in Nevada at that time. That’s when the convention centers were expanded and Las Vegas began to consider different ways to attract visitors. We got sidetracked from time to time with a focus on “family entertainment” and other divergent directions, and we’ll probably make similar mistakes this time. But the worst mistake we could make is to do nothing and to ignore the new realities of a post-downturn life. Let’s all come together and decide how to best address this new reality, design a plan and put it into action. 

By Roger Gros

Roger Gros is publisher of Casino Connection and editor and publisher of Global Gaming Business magazine, the industry’s leading gaming trade publication. Prior to joining Global Gaming Business, Gros was president of Inlet Communications, an independent consulting firm. He was vice president of Casino Journal Publishing Group from 1984-2000, and held virtually every editorial title during his tenure. Gros was editor of Casino Journal, the National Gaming Summary and the Atlantic City Insider, and was the founding editor of Casino Player magazine. He was a co-founder of the American Gaming Summit and the Southern Gaming Summit conferences and trade shows. He is the author of the best-selling book, How to Win at Casino Gambling (Carlton Books, 1995), now in its third edition. Gros was named “Businessman of the Year” for 1998 by the Greater Atlantic City Chamber of Commerce.