Las Vegas casino industry on the mend

Gary Loveman the well respected CEO of Caesar's Entertainment believes that there are very encouraging signs coming out of the casino industry in Las Vegas. In an interview with CNBC he stated that, "Things in Vegas are getting better," and that Vegas is "more buoyant, in large part because supply has been stable now for some time, demand patterns are improving, the conventions and meetings business is robust."

During the bad years of between 2007 and 2014 the Center for Gaming Research at the University of Nevada in Vegas states that the drop in casino revenue was 19.2% with even the mighty Caesar's feeling the pain and filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy to assist with cutting some $10 billion of debt.

There's been more of a focus in recent years of getting away from a gambling only aspect to Las Vegas with many of the larger casinos pushing their business, conventions and meeting facilities, and this combined with new restaurants and nightclubs has helped. The Las Vegas Convention and Visitor's Authority also revealed encouraging signs announcing that a total of 12 new trade shows or conventions will be hitting Las Vegas this year and are expected to bring in around $315 million between them.

Visitor numbers are in fact on the up with a huge 41.1 million people making the trip to Vegas in 2014, a startling 1.4 million more than 2012, which was a record setting year itself. There's hope that the WSOP this year will yet again work its magic and boost the visitor numbers as online qualifiers and promotions are already up and running in many of the best US online poker rooms, and with the Main Event being more recreational player friendly, there could be a record turnout in the making.