Neon casino signs beckon to weary travellers along the Colorado River at the close of a sweltering day in the Nevada desert. Nearly 100 miles south of America’s gambling mecca, the promise of cheap food and kind odds glows bright over the town of Laughlin. So bright, in fact, that it’s stealing from seats at the Sin City slots.
Inside an arcade thick with cigarette smoke and slot machine jingles at the Riverside Resort, David Sanner explains why he’s among the rapidly growing crowd seduced by this unheralded town of 8,000 and not its more glamorous neighbour.
“Las Vegas is too expensive,” the 70-year-old pensioner says, before bestowing a major compliment on Laughlin. “These casinos are like old school Vegas.”
While Las Vegas endures an extended tourism slump, partially attributed to sky-high prices and too many hidden fees, Laughlin is enjoying a boom of bargain hunters chasing cheap thrills.
Visitor numbers in Laughlin are up seven per cent year-on-year, according to the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority, compared with an almost eight per cent drop for Nevada’s biggest city.
Local airports have recorded an almost ten per cent jump in passenger numbers and more than a million tourists visited the town this year.
Amid uncertain economic times and a backlash against the perceived “nickel and diming” of Las Vegas, the previously unfashionable Laughlin is attracting new attention.
Sanner, who drives around the American west with his wife in an RV, is better placed than most to comment on the changing face of Las Vegas.
Laughlin does not have as many casinos as Las Vegas but the options are much cheaper
DAN TUFFS FOR THE TIMES
He lived there for 14 years, working in security at both Caesars Palace and the Paris hotel. Sanner retired four years ago and recalls how his former home turned away from middle-class Americans.
“Back then Caesars didn’t charge resort fees, parking was free, the valet was free, the bellmen were,” he says. “Everything was free but you just tipped.”
Sanner is describing a bygone Las Vegas, before the Strip began chasing wealthy tourists prepared to pay a premium for what officials insist is a peerless entertainment offering.
Until this year the approach was working. But now, critics say, the prices have gone too far.
Anthony Curtis, the publisher of the bargain-hunting Las Vegas Advisor website and newsletter, believes the Strip’s struggles represent an opportunity for Laughlin.
“I hear it all the time, people saying ‘I miss what Vegas used to be’,” he says. “And I see some of that in Laughlin.
“For a lot of people, going to a gambling city is a guilty pleasure. They want something back to give them a bit of entitlement to it. That can be bargains and good deals.
“And as they dry up in Vegas, where people feel like they’re getting robbed on the casino floor and robbed everywhere they go, they want to go somewhere where they can get that entitlement. Laughlin fits the bill.”
Curtis pinpoints the pandemic as the trigger for a surge in Vegas pricing. After being locked at home, tourists were desperate for a release when the Strip reopened after 78 days in 2020.
“People went crazy after Covid, they had all this money saved up and said, ‘I don’t care what it costs, I’m going to pay it’,” he says.
“And the people in Vegas who are running the show said, ‘Let’s raise these prices and keep raising them until the market says no’. It’s finally reached the point where they’ve hit the limit and people have had enough.”
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Anyone who has suffered “sticker shock” at seeing prices during a recent trip to Las Vegas would find welcome relief in Laughlin. Parking is free along the main strip, neon signs advertise all-you-can-eat pasta for $10.99 and even the dreaded resort fees that have so angered visitors to Vegas are relatively inexpensive.
A Friday night room at the Riverside Resort, one of Laughlin’s premier hotels, costs $89. There is a resort fee of $24. Vegas’ top hotels charge considerably more for a room — the average nightly rate in the city was $162 in August — and the resort fee can be upwards of $50 a night.
Experts have urged the Strip casinos to temporarily drop the hated fees to give tourism a much-needed boost. Officials in Laughlin hope they do not.
When Don Laughlin flew over this patch of desert in the early 1960s there was just a boarded-up motel and a dirt road. The settlement had sprouted 20 years earlier to serve silver and gold miners, as well as construction workers on the nearby Davis Dam.
Once that project had finished and the labourers left, the motel fell into disrepair. Laughlin, an entrepreneur who owned a Las Vegas club, offered to buy the land after spotting it from the air.
What was then called the Riverside Resort quickly found its footing. Value is in its DNA — Laughlin offered all-you-can-eat chicken dinners for 98 cents and gambling on 12 slot machines.
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Over the following decades Laughlin flourished and made its founder, who died aged 92 in 2023, a billionaire. The gambling oasis is still thriving.
While Laughlin does not lure the same calibre of stars as Las Vegas — it is hard to imagine Adele performing a residency on the banks of the Colorado River — the town has surprising pulling power.
Over the coming months the country music stars Jason Aldean and LeAnn Rimes will perform in Laughlin, as will the A-list comedian Kevin Hart and the American Pie singer Don McLean.
That is not to say Laughlin is without its faults. The town, near the point where Arizona, Nevada and California meet, lacks the glitz of Las Vegas. Parts of it are shabby and reflect the budget prices.
Many of the neon signs have missing letters, including a “SLOTS” sign on a Western-themed establishment that reads “SOTS”. And the clientele tends to be older.
Compression socks and walking frames are a popular combination inside casinos. The early bird dinners do a roaring trade. But older gamblers are far from the only customers.
Stacey Foltz, a 60-year-old retail worker from San Antonio, Texas, was in Laughlin with her husband, Mike, thanks to generous perks.
They had wanted to stay in Las Vegas after watching The Wizard of Oz at the Sphere, the city’s major entertainment venue that opened in 2023.
But Foltz balked at the prospect of paying between $200 and $300 for a hotel when they had the offer of a free room in Laughlin through a loyalty scheme.
Stacey Foltz said she had recommended Laughlin to friends
DAN TUFFS FOR THE TIMES
“It’s not like it used to be,” Foltz says of Vegas perks while waiting for a river ferry. “Even with our Players card which we were getting a free room here with, they still wanted 200 to 300 bucks for a room.
“People say Laughlin is for an older crowd; maybe it is. We used to enjoy Vegas but we just don’t like it any more.”
Foltz concedes that gambling is better in Las Vegas as there are more options at the many casinos. And for big attractions such as the Sphere, humble Laughlin cannot compete.
That said, Foltz considers the town a hidden gem that should be more popular. “We always tell people to come here,” she says.
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Gambling is not Laughlin’s only draw. It sits on the banks of the fast-moving Colorado River, which separates the town from Bullhead City, Arizona.
Jet skis race across the water as Boeing 737s touchdown at the local airport with fresh loads of tourists. The rugged landscape attracts outdoor enthusiasts while boat tours are popular.
Trevor Chiodini, 47, is a tour guide who ferries visitors down the river. He says visitors come to Laughlin from all over the US, as well as internationally. And while many tourists are bargain hunters, that does not mean they are short of dollars.
Trevor Chiodini behind the wheel of his tour boat
DAN TUFFS FOR THE TIMES
“We get a diverse group of people here,” Chiodini, who bears a striking resemblance to the late Hollywood tough guy Michael Madsen, says. “It’s not just your penny pinchers or ‘I’m on a budget’ kind of people.
“We get a little bit of that but they still spend money and that’s good for us.”
Business has seldom been better for Chiodini and his colleagues.
As an uncertain economy pushes more Americans to tighten their budgets, they are delighted to welcome more refugees from Las Vegas.
“People that like to go Vegas know they can come here and gamble and it’s going to be a lot cheaper,” Chiodini says from the wheel of his tour boat.
“They’re not paying resort fees, a Wi-Fi fee, a parking fee, or drink fee. I mean how much can you fee somebody before they’re not going to come back to your business?”
Laughlin casinos hope Las Vegas continues to avoid answering that question.
