This is CBS Eye on the World. Here's John Batchelor. Jeff Bliss is Pacific Watch. We go right to Las Vegas. There's trouble. Jeff, a very good evening to you. I understand there's a heat wave in SoCal, but not the scale of heat on the owners in the

strip in Las Vegas. Business is slower, acknowledges one man who's a veteran of working on

the strip for food and drinks. What's happened, Jeff? Is this nickel and dime, or is it worse? Good

evening. Good evening, John. This is a combination of several things. The nickel

and diming problem where they've been throwing all kinds of fees and charges, everything you

can imagine has taken its toll. It's certainly keeping away a lot of the regular traffic. It would come

from a place like Southern California that's just a few hours away. But there are also,

there's worry about the economy, a possible recession, about discretionary income. And,

you know, as the resort casinos have been raising prices, they've been cutting back staff,

services dropping off, it's harder to get food and drink

and any kind of service in the hotel. So people are saying, you know, what am I going there for?

I'm going to get a lousy service. I'm going to get charged through the nose. And then, you know,

I'm going to lose 5,000 at the tables on top of that. And one of the reasons I bring up the tables

is because it seems like they've jacked up the minimum betting at one of the reasons I bring up the tables is because it seems like

they've jacked up the minimum betting at most of the tables. I remember when you could bet two or even

$5 at a blackjack table for a minimum. And now you're talking about, you know, 25 minimum in a

lot of places. And that you see you see blackjack tables that were never, never empty, just going

without these days.

So you've got all those problems.

And then I always have to add the fact that gambling is almost everywhere now, you know,

the ubiquity of it.

So you've got people who can do it online.

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