Las Vegas used to be the land of perks: Casinos were fighting for customers, so they offered free parking, complimentary drinks and $1.99 shrimp cocktails.
For gamblers, even relatively small-time players, getting a pit boss to provide a free buffet or even a comped dinner or a hotel room wasn’t that difficult. Now, perks like free hotel rooms and meals generally are handed out before a player even sets foot in Las Vegas.
Valuable gamblers can still get free rooms, free parking, and even dining credit based on how much they’d gambled on past trips. Medium rollers who regularly hit the casino floor generally have a casino host who handles requests for rooms and other perks.
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If you gamble enough during a trip, a host might be able to wipe a charge off your bill, maybe for something like a daybed at a pool, or even get you tickets to a show or sporting event.
Small-time players, however, generally don’t get these perks anymore.
Casinos on the Las Vegas Strip have been able to slowly not just do away with perks for this class of visitors but ramp up the fees they pay.
If you don’t have elite status in the Caesars Entertainment (CZR) – Get Free Report or MGM Resorts International’s loyalty rewards program, you will pay for parking as well as a daily resort fee. Both these fees have slowly inched up over the years, and during slower times of year the resort fee plus parking charges might cost more than your hotel room by itself.
Caesars, however, has quietly raised another fee that many Las Vegas Strip visitors often get stuck paying.
There’s no way to connect a slot machine directly to your room account.
Image source: John Greim/LightRocket via Getty Images
Caesars pushes an outrageous charge even higher
When you sail on a cruise ship and you have some casino status (generally the lowest level of earned status), you can download cash directly into a slot machine from your room account at no charge. You can do the same thing when playing table games, so you never have to go to an ATM and you don’t pay any fees.
That’s not how it works in Las Vegas. Unless you arrange a line of credit with the Strip casino resort you’re staying at, if you want cash you must withdraw it from an ATM, and those transactions come with very high fees.
As of August 2023, Caesars properties were charging $9.99 per ATM transaction while MGM properties charged either $7.99 or $8.99, according to Las Vegas Then and Now.
Wynn and Encore were veritable bargains for the major players at $6,99 while the soon-to-be-closed Casino Royale offered ATMs charging only $3 per transaction.
Now, Caesars has raised its ATM fees even higher.
“Caesars Ent. has raised its ATM fees to $11.99,” Vital Vegas shared on X, the former Twitter.
Las Vegas Strip operators know their customers
Las Vegas Strip casino operators largely charge the same annoying fees. Yes, you might save a few dollars here and there if you’re careful, but all the major players charge similar parking, resort and ATM fees.
You can avoid some of these charges if you stay at some of the lesser properties on the Strip, but most people won’t stay at The Strat or Circus Circus just to save $30 to $60 a day.
Regular Las Vegas visitors avoid most of these fees (albeit not ATM charges) by earning status in the big casino loyalty programs. Caesars Diamond members, for example, have their resort fees and parking charges waived. MGM offers the same perks at comparable levels of its programs.
People who visit Las Vegas less often and don’t have that level of status generally accept that fees are simply part of the cost of being in Vegas.
In theory, you can leave a resort and find a cheaper bank-owned ATM on the Strip, but few people will stop having fun to take a long walk away from the gaming floor to save $5 to $8.
Las Vegas Strip casinos have a captive audience — and Caesars, MGM, Wynn and the other big players take full advantage.
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