The casinos didn’t close for even a day after the 9/11 terrorist attacks or after a 2017 mass shooting along the Strip that left 60 victims dead. The Las Vegas Strip’s allure is the promise of escape into a nonstop party, an all-hours pulse shaped by capitalistic excess and the vagaries of chance.

“But I’m still out of work … so are so many others as well.”īut they’ll be coming soon - at least that’s what elected officials hope: the gamblers, suckers and all the rest, driving across the desert from California or landing at McCarran International Airport with connections from London and Beijing. “There is all this talk from politicians and whatnot about Vegas coming back,” Sykes said. But the contours of that comeback are not fully drawn, and many wonder whether they will return to the livelihoods they lost or be forced into another year of uncertainty. It is, in a sense, a test of America’s ability to reclaim itself. In Las Vegas, where gambling revenue plummeted by nearly 45% last year and tens of thousands of the city’s service industry employees remain out of work, casinos and restaurants are set to return to full capacity Tuesday.

is emerging from the aftershock of a pandemic crisis that dimmed blackjack tables and led to long lines at food banks. “I’ve been out of work ever since.”Ī year and two months since the coronavirus paralyzed the nation and drove record unemployment - including staggeringly high percentages among service industry employees, who make up more than a quarter of this city’s workforce - the U.S. “They let me go immediately,” Sykes said, recalling the start of pandemic shutdowns that cost him his $14-an-hour job. Then, last spring, like a dust devil of bad luck, Sykes’ life shattered.

Las vegas mayor open casinos