California Tribal Casino Opens Hotel Putting Further Pressure on Northern Nevada Gaming

The Sacramento Bee reports on the opening of a 300-room hotel, spa and amphitheater at the Thunder Valley Casino, north of Sacramento. This is bad news for gaming properties in northern Nevada. Northern Nevada has definitely been hit by the recession as well as the explosion of tribal gaming in California. By adding lodging to their property, Thunder Valley is even that much more of a draw for gamblers that want to spend the night at a property, but not drive all the way to Nevada. This is a good move for Thunder Valley and bad for Northern Nevada.

I had a post last year that discussed a radical approach to helping Lake Tahoe and Reno hotel casinos compete - putting legal brothels in the properties. That idea was discussed in a Casino Operations class at UNLV last spring and it was not rejected out of hand by the students. What should be noted is that I'm not the first to pose the idea. The mayor of Las Vegas, Oscar Goodman, posited the same idea for Sin City back in 2007. He took some heat for his position, but an opinion piece in the Las Vegas Review Journal supported him. I do too. It makes sense for Las Vegas but makes even more sense for Northern Nevada gaming properties. In fact, it might be a matter of survival.