Two Way Hard Three | Las Vegas Casino & Design Blog

Just spent the last couple of days in Macau staying at Wynn. Had a brilliant time (and even managed to extract some money from the Wynn blackjack tables). The whole town was really starting to fill up with people rapidly - the border crossings were very congested (mostly with people going into Macau) and all the casinos I went to were doing very good business. The new Grand Lisboa casino must be 2 or 3 times the size of Wynn casino and had about 2 or 3 times the number of people, but almost all seemed to be mainland Chinese, many of which were simply there to gawk at the latest Macau offering (and the relatively skanky dancers on the main stage) and were making the most of the free tea and sandwiches.

Posted by detroit1051

Thanks, Chris. A friend flew from Florida to Hong Kong this week for Chinese New Year. He will stay at Wynn next week, after the New Year weekend. Since he is an infrequent casino visitor, I asked him to email his impressions. I'll share them here.

Posted by detroit1051

Wednesday's NY Times has an interesting piece on Chinese New Year in Las Vegas, written by Steve Friess. There are several comments by LVS' William Weidner:

"The importance of Chinese New Year to the casino industry is clear by the lengths to which properties go to court Asian gamblers during the holiday. This year�s Chinese New Year began on the Presidents� Day weekend, typically a busy time for the city, which was also the site of the NBA All-Star Game and one of the year�s biggest conventions, the men�s apparel trade show. But Mr. Weidner said his company�s top priority was its clients, some of whom the company ferried here from Asia on its fleet of private jets.
�This is a merit system here,� Mr. Weidner said. �The highest quality players will get whatever they want. The Chinese are the highest and best quality players in the world, so they�ll have preference. We don�t care how tall you are, how short you are, how fat you are, what color you are. Green is the most important color.�
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/21/us/21vegas.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

After being in Vegas for part of Chinese New Year, it is shocking to see how much these casinos just drop everything for these people. I know big time gamblers make the wheels spin in this city, and there was some big time money being thrown around. But being a non Chinese guest at two major hotels made me feel extremely isolated and not wanted. At times myself and my party avoided areas because we didn't feel welcome for not being a celebrating member of the new year. Also when I went to Wynn's breakfast buffeast, I was treated with a question of a regular buffeast or a champagne/bloody mary special, I said no thanks on the bottomless Booze and said just the regular buffeast for me, well 65.00 later I was at the Buffeast and left with a blank stare when i questioned why it was so much, turns out Chinese New Year means jack up your prices to an outrageous level and then explain it that it's a "holiday brunch," where was my president's day "holiday brunch?" Good job Wynn, don't worry about your other guests they don't mind getting ripped off because some people in your casino are there for a uber special day (yes I know its extremely special but it got old real quick)