There’s something concerning about a town like Las Vegas – a town that relies on its hotel and casino business – and not much else - for its livelihood. Of course, for years no one cared and no one questioned what was going on with all the construction and grand openings. People would still come in droves for all the excitement and they would come again. It was that type of town.

Today, however, there is something wrong. Vegas has been one of the hardest hit cities during the “financial crisis” (caused largely through the efforts of Barney Frank—who slept with the male head of Fannie-Mae, and Chris Dodd—another New England crazed Democrat who misled homebuyers from the get go and who has a father that already had a history of chicanery). To go along with the city’s rampant social problems, lost jobs, foreclosures and desperation are the talk of the day. The casinos are becoming more humbled every day as they continue to send out unprecedented incredible offers around the country with hopes of roping in gamblers to suffer big time losses. Take a trip down Las Vegas Blvd. on ANY night of the week, and those gridlock traffic jams are just a thing of the past. And not to be outdone, all the local casinos have ramped up their slick promotions that reel in the most vulnerable of players, better known as a collection of “advantage players” along with the welfare/unemployed/social security crowd.

Yet all is not so bleak – at least in the eyes of the casino moguls along the Strip and even beyond. With all that confidence-building money continually rolling in from Dubai, the gargantuan City Center continues to be built non-stop 24/7. But I just don’t get it. Sure, it’ll add another extraordinarily spectacular look to the Strip, and when it opens it’ll be a one-of-a-kind mega-plex of dining, shopping, gaming and hotel accommodations. Plus it’ll instantly employ thousands of folks, but as usual, that’ll be mostly from the lower paid service industry. What it will do to Strip traffic has yet to be seen.

I’m wondering not how they’re gonna fill all those rooms for the first few months, but how they’re going to KEEP them filled...and how this monstrosity will affect the other properties’ occupancy rates. Right now and for quite a while, the hotels have been facing much lower than average fills, and that trend will go on for the foreseeable future. So for every room occupied at the new City Center, that means one less room sold at Mandalay Bay, Venetian, Caesar’s, Wynn, etc., etc., etc. Very few people are going to come to LV just to stay in a new hotel, who didn’t plan on coming anyway.

The same goes for the new Centurion tower in the final stages of construction at Caesar’s Palace. Do they really need another large hotel when they can’t fill the rooms they already have? And don’t get me going on Steve Wynn’s new Encore. The Wynn casino has been compared to a ghost town at times throughout 2008, and Wynn’s responded by sending out some of the most lucrative offers in the city to gamblers all over the world. Is Encore really something new and different? We’ll see this next week, but I find it impossible for the best rooms in the city to be bested simply by putting up another tower. It really makes little sense and besides, rumors of Wynn’s financial problems have been floating around for many months. The same for the Venetian/Palazzo venture. It’s hard not to have such rumors when you walk through half-empty casinos on Friday and Saturday nights.

One of the biggest head-scratchers is next Spring’s upcoming opening of the new M (Marnell) Resort on I believe St. Rose Parkway. Huh? Another $1billion off-Strip luxury casino/resort with 390 more rooms? Who do they think is going to stay there anyway – locals? I’m thinking it’ll be on the scale of Red Rock Station, and already I’m hearing talk of bankruptcy from Stations Casinos – and so soon after the opening of the new Aliante Station way up north.

Throughout all this new construction does come some tiny bit of sense. Boyd has stopped building its new Echelon Place mega resort/casino on the north end of the Strip for a year...or at least that’s what they initially said. I’m sure that decision was laiden with administrative problems from every direction, but that management team saw things the way I see them. Who’s gonna come to town to fill up their rooms and drop money in their casino when the economy is struggling and people are worried about tomorrow?

But apparently, these other properties are blinded by something no one else can see. I’d like to see it all turn around, but even when I look into my crystal ball I can’t get a clear read. The whole thing depends upon visitors, and right now those visitors have a ton of other more important issues to deal with. Good luck Las Vegas.