Las Vegas NowColorado Votes to Amend Gaming Rules

Colorado Votes to Amend Gaming Rules

With the Strip still slumping and some companies limping toward bankruptcy, the last thing Las Vegas wants is more casinos elsewhere. But Election Day changed all that, as Colorado voted to expand betting limits and hours of operation in the mountain gaming towns.

Colorado voters want to hear more echoes of slot machines ringing off the pristine mountains, but experts say the unique options of our fair city will keep us afloat.

Colorado's Amendment 50 won by 18-percentage points. Right now, Colorado casinos have only $5 max bet limits, they are only open from 8 a.m. to 2 a.m., and they are smoke free -- so very different from Las Vegas.

Amendment 50 would let the three casino towns about 45 minutes from Denver to vote on upping max bets $100 and go to 24 hours. They also could add craps and roulette to slots, blackjack and poker.

Gaming expert and UNLV professor David Schwartz says gaming expansions elsewhere only entice people to come to Vegas for shows and non-gaming activities can't be found anywhere else.

"I don't think Las Vegas needs to be worried. For the past 20 years, they've shown that people still come to Vegas even when they can gamble locally. I think as long as people here are providing these unique attractions, people will still come here," he said.

Schwartz says Colorado's casinos have always been oddities. They are removed from the Denver metro area, so gamblers who might want to come to Las Vegas would come anyway and bypass the local option.

Schwartz also says gaming companies actually do better during these expansions, because many of them run some of these mountain casinos. And as long as they keep the smoking ban in Colorado gaming, analysts say Las Vegas will be just fine.