Betting on a Las Vegas Comeback

One of my favorite places in the world is Las Vegas. The lights, the casinos, the action and just the overall atmosphere make this city an annual destination for me.

However, Las Vegas was shut down for over a year due to COVID-19 restrictions. We couldn’t visit most of the places we love at the height of the pandemic. Even when things opened up a little, it wasn’t very desirable because of rules put in place to fight the virus.

Then the vaccines came and the cases dropped, helping America and Vegas reopen. Tourism started to pick back up all over the country as people started to travel again.

When it comes to Vegas, I can tell you firsthand that the city is back and more energized than ever. I was there just a few weeks ago and from what I saw, the reopening is causing a spectacular bounceback.

I’ll talk about my experience and highlight some stocks that will benefit from the reopening, but let’s first talk about the impact the pandemic had on the city.

Las Vegas and COVID-19

COVID has taken its toll all over the globe, but the metro area that was hit the hardest economically was Las Vegas. When you have a city so dependent on tourism, the suffering was amplified when that aspect of the economy was shut off.

Let’s go over what happened last March in Las Vegas:

March 5th 2020: First case of COVID in Nevada.
March 10th: MGM Resorts (NYSE:MGM) closes all buffets at its properties
March 12th: Gov. Steve Sisolak declares state of emergency
March 12th: No March Madness tournament announced
March 12th and 13th: NHL and NBA suspended
March 15th: Wynn Closes (other hotel/casinos follow within a week)
March 24th: Social restrictions ordered, no more than 10 people in a group
April 1: Stay at home order.

Writing that down and reliving that timeline isn’t easy. It was a rough time for all of us. While a lot of us adapted well and could work from home, the reality was that...

Las Vegas was closed!

The U.S. Travel Association said that the pandemic resulted in $500 billion in cumulative losses in Vegas alone, which added over $60 billion in losses to tax revenues. Unemployment spiked to 34% and according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics was the largest of any metro area in the country.

Even when we got past the initial fear stage and things started opening up, the recovery was very slow. Conventions were still not back and hotels that usually charge $400 a night during Consumer Electronics Show week were charging less than $50 during the same week.

Things were very bleak, but as the pandemic came under control, things started to open up. The city announced that on June 1st all restrictions would be lifted and I got to see that the following weekend. Vegas was back!

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And it's not just open again, there is an extra element that will be a tailwind. There has been a shift in culture that has changed the opportunity – not just for Vegas, but for casino and gambling businesses around the nation.

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Zacks Investment Research