I can only speak to my personal experience, in Vegas, but the electronic machines have become pretty unfriendly to casual players who just want to enjoy themselves. Gone are the true 1-25 cent machines, replaced with games that pretty much require you to wager dollars at a time. Plus Vegas has gotten more entertainment oriented over time, so that the casinos really aren't that interesting anymore. The trend away from smoking probably plays a role, with few casino floors being smoke-free.
This is arguably the way all of society has gone. Everything and I mean everything is about extracting money out of you, because the politicians who designed this version of capitalism (no, it's not natural) didn't know about Goodhart's law, or more likely, didn't care.
That's not a positive development: it's because casinos are getting replaced by sports betting on your phone, which is much much worse.
dont forget the casinoization of the stock market
Also they've been bought out by private equity an prices have shot through the roof -- Vegas is seeing massive downturns in tourism and from my cursory following of the problem, it's all price increases on food, booze, travel, hotels on the Strip making people uninterested in going.
That's because now you can go broke without leaving your sofa with mobile sports betting, option trading, prediction markets and crypto
Why go to a casino to loose money, when you can loose money betting on Polymarket/Crypto online from your phone anywhere you are?
I think it’s also the lack of disposable income to gamble with.
“Why gamble in Vegas, when you can do it from your phone in NYC?”.
There’s a significant devaluation of “in-person fun”, and it’s sad to see.