Pop Color - Paint by number

About Pop Color - Paint by number

In the late 2000s, we wrote a humor column for the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Titled “Fear and Loafing,” it involved sampling odd jobs around town. One we wanted to try out was working as a personal assistant to a Vegas celebrity.

Every resident headliner up and down the Strip either declined or ignored our request. Most likely, the downside of having a working reporter snoop around their private life outweighed any potential upside.

Carrot Top, uniquely, was game.

What is Pop Color - Paint by number?

Through July, the Las Vegas Convention & Visitors Authority (LVCVA) reported that visitor volume has rebounded only 0.5%. 2026 followed a difficult 2025, where visitation crashed 7.5%.

Far fewer travelers are arriving in the casino town by air this year. Harry Reid International Airport reported 30.2 million passengers through July—a 6.9% drop from the same period in 2025—with international traffic down nearly 9%.

The LVCVA and Harry Reid International Airport have not yet released their August reports. Truist Securities analyst Barry Jonas isn’t expecting a major rally.

About Pop Color - Paint by number

Yet Macau’s IR proposition extends well beyond the casino floor. Luxury accommodation, restaurants, shopping, concerts, conventions, art and other forms of entertainment have become part of a wider, equally indulgent experience surrounding gaming.

For Japan, the question is whether this broader proposition could make casino resorts more socially and culturally palatable by giving visitors reasons to come, other than gambling.

But for Klebanow, the lesson Japan should take from Macau and Singapore extends beyond the importance of non-gaming attractions. It is also about how regulation should work. Policymakers, he argues, should establish basic legal and commercial guardrails, while giving operators sufficient “latitude” to “propose and develop projects that best serve both the residential and tourism markets”.