In this week’s Green Felt Journal, I take a look at a lower-profile casino perk, and the local group of entrepreneurs that it benefits:
Smaller-time gamblers play for smaller perks: T-shirts, six packs of soda, even meat thermometers. So it’s not surprising to get a Boyd Gaming promotion offering the chance to redeem B Connected players card points at the Artisan Craft Festival. It’s not the kind of perk you’d expect from cinematic Las Vegas, but it’s perfectly in tune with the reality of who actually visits local casinos.
Read more: The Artisan Craft Festival Is a Perk for Real People – Vegas Seven
I wanted to show a little slice of Las Vegas gambling that isn’t always captured or appreciated in the news: what casinos are like for the vast majority of gamblers. I also wanted to show how local groups like the Artisan Craft Festival mesh with casinos. One of the things about Las Vegas that might surprise non-locals is just how important locals casinos are as meeting spaces. For example, the Nevada PTA held their awards ceremony this year at Texas Station. That might seem very unusual to someone from somewhere else, but in Las Vegas it’s just everyday life. Casinos have the space at reasonable rates, so people use it.