Rio ended shuttle service to Las Vegas strip on November 6, 2017

In the 1990s, the Rio was seen as a exciting hotel, with a party atmosphere.

Despite its off-strip location, it featured big rooms and a seemingly non-stop party in the casino, including the popular "Show in the Sky". The name "Rio" was in reference to Rio de Janiero, and the guest was supposed to feel like he was in a Brazilian party atmosphere.

Since Harrah's purchased it, the property has been neglected, and most of its interesting features slowly removed. Most notably the "Show in the Sky" is gone, and the casino is now basically the same as any other in town.

The Rio has 7 weeks of glory -- during the World Series of Poker -- and then goes largely quiet. It does have the most convention space of any Caesars properties, and plenty of parking, so it does host some conventions. Other than that, the property is fairly useless to Caesars, and there have long been talks of selling it. It has fallen somewhat into disrepair, and even the maintenance staff has privately complained to me that cuts in staffing make it impossible to keep the place running smoothly.

The off-strip location remains a problem, as visitors without a car find themselves isolated from the strip. It is close enough to walk to the strip, but requires a noisy walk over a freeway overpass, and many have concerns regarding crime while doing so at night. In addition, people don't enjoy walking in the oppressive heat of summer or the cool, windy nights during the winter.

In order to solve that problem, Caesars has been running a free shuttle service to the strip. Until now.



So you better have a car if you stay there and want to visit the strip.

Sad. But you can just take an Uber over for a few bucks if you need to go to the Rio for some reason.

Well that sucks balls! I would park there and take shuttle to Bally's to avoid the strip traffic on weekends. Was also convenient during wsop when staying on the strip. Hope The Orleans and Gold Coast don't follow suit.

READ: we need to cut more opex (since we cant figure out any way to drive incremental revenue) and after dozens of hours of studying and mulling this over we decided to cut this small, inexpensive perk to our guests because at the end of the day we don't give a fuck about our guests...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GambleBotsChafedPenis

READ: we need to cut more opex (since we cant figure out any way to drive incremental revenue) and after dozens of hours of studying and mulling this over we decided to cut this small, inexpensive perk to our guests because at the end of the day we don't give a fuck about our guests...

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Totally true.. Its typical business suicidal actions.. Failure to recognize that little shit matters to the customers and then wonder why revenue is down and people aren't staying there.. The stupid thing is CET forgets people have a ton of choices when they come to Vegas they aren't the only game in town and their days of dominating and being able to drive the market are OVER.. Maybe its some stupid ass logic to get people to stay at the RIO during WSOP but that only matters 6 weeks of the year anyway.. I mean the option is obviously there for Uber or Lyft to fill the gaps because this time of year hey people don't mind walking some with the weather.. When its 120 fucking brain frying degrees people don't want to stand outside let alone walk that far off the strip.. It would almost make more sense for Ceasers to move the WSOP to another location with significant space for the tournaments on the strip but given their propensity to do shit and not think it through first negates that as likely..

What the idiots don't realize and you so eloquently pointed out is that they need to address gaming revenue.. What it seems is they are too busy trying to focus on sucking in foreign whales (who really don't need to come to Vegas to play high they can play in Macau just as easily as they can in Vegas but with less big brother from Mainland China).. Ive always said while its nice they have their high limit rooms if avg joes could afford to play pit games it might actually increase their bottom line as much because when folks don't have a lot of money to gamble with they end up sticking to pennyslots because they don't want to be stuck playing for $5-$25 minimums in the pits when their budget is only $1000 or so to light on fire.. They should consider bringing in some low limit pit games they might be surprised by the action they could drum up vs tables sitting empty with employees drawing a check doing nothing but looking bored.. Id love to even consider playing some Ultimate Holdem but when seems table minimums are upwards of $10-$25 when ive been in town my poker math says why would I even consider playing a game where I have essentially the equivalent of a short stack.. Better some avg tourist gambler play some lower limit tables then just bypass them all together because the likelihood of them burning their gambling budget in under 30mins because of high table minimums just is -ev for the player and the casino in the end as well losing out on potential gaming income...

Reminds me of the saying better a smaller part of something at all then a huge part of NOTHING.. Gaming revenue still is the business of casinos and finding a way to get players to the tables by just hoping they'll stop and play vs reeling them in and maybe getting repeat business in the future.. Get a guy hooked on playing table game for smaller stakes maybe he comes back with a bigger bankroll next time and will play those higher stakes. Don't know how fucking hard that is for casinos to figure out..

Quote:

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Originally Posted by GambleBotsChafedPenis

READ: we need to cut more opex (since we cant figure out any way to drive incremental revenue) and after dozens of hours of studying and mulling this over we decided to cut this small, inexpensive perk to our guests because at the end of the day we don't give a fuck about our guests...

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Love, love, love what you contribute to the big casino topic.

I should just sit and listen but it is irresistible to not want to play along.

Here's a quick take on the Rio.

So the WSOP brings 100,000 entrants. I don't know how many unique visitors that is. Doesn't matter, the number is large. The RIO is a ghost town aside from the event, per Druff. How much recurring business is generated by the Rio touching these gamblers/customers?

Let's call it zero.

You can surmise the hotel/casino experience these players had. Perhaps you can drill into the value of poker.

You could hire someone or assign someone the task of yielding some repeat business from the WSOP players. Beat them to death until results are achieved. But it's hopeless, there is no unique experience that this casino offers.

The WSOP RIO stories are ones of endurance not fun.

I do enjoy the fail cause it affirms my big casino forecast.

@PMB and San...

lets see if I can address this in a semi coherent manner...

like I said in one of my stories the gold/retail level customer (read: the low rollers) are basically seen as a thorn in the ass of the evil empire...they feel that the cost to market to these players is too high so they want to ignore them or just fee them to death so they can turn them into higher worth players...is it a good idea? don't know to be honest...never sat down with a marketing person to have them explain it to me...they would rather focus on higher worth customers...ok great...but you actually have to have services that cater to those players...haven't been in CP in ages so don't know how nice the property is as far as presentation and shit, but the rio is obviously in shit shape, gonna assume ballys/harrahs/flamingo are in shitty condition and the linq probably isn't that great either...Cromwell being new probably is in nice condition...so like you said PMB, why go to a caesars property for the Asian whales when they can get luxury in their homeland? and also you're competing against wynn (gorgeous), aria (ditto), venetian/palazzo (guessing these are well kept), bellagio (went there a year ago and it was still very nice), and MGM (heard it is still awesome for their ultra high worth clients)...

san, agree with you...you have 100K customers that you know have the propensity to gamble...should probably try to take advantage of that fact...was excited when I first started working at the evil empire that they had this great WSOP brand and they could leverage that...honestly don't know if they do that or not...gonna guess no...just get 'em in, rake 'em, get 'em the fuck out...

we had a shuttle where I worked as well...that got nixed pretty quickly when the cuts went down...trying to remember what it cost to run the thing...want to say $400K? don't quote me on that cause again trying to forget I worked there, but it's probably not that far off...they did 17,000 different analysis on the cross property play of players who used the shuttle and the count of players by tier who used the shuttle...again just seemed to me like an exercise in mental masturbation (an evil empire staple)...look at who uses the shuttle...if you have a decent number of 7* and diamonds who use it, keep it...otherwise, chuck it...not that hard...I mean you could probably just run the thing in the busy season to save on expenses (which would probably make the most sense if you are looking to cut expenses), but it was just hacked away...again where I worked we were a high 8 figure business and we're worried about 6 figures in expense...I get running a business lean and mean, but fuck...they truly don't give a fuck about their customers plain and simple...probably should say they give a fuck about their 7* and diamonds and that's it...

in the gaming world nowadays money is EXTREMELY fungable...with local casinos popping up all over the place you really need to go outta your way to make the customer experience a nice one...the evil empire doesn't get that...why am I going to go out of my way to travel to one of your casinos if I can go to a local spot, get the same gaming experience in a nice environment? where I live, the local places that I have been too are very well maintained and have the same gaming I can get where I used to work and I don't have to spring for a hotel room or drive and fight traffic...

sorry for the rambling post...but hope that addresses some things...