A $12 coffee and a $26 bottle of water became unexpected symbols of Las Vegas in 2025, carried across social feeds like a clip from a new series. The attention that follows everyday price tags is one sign that casinos now compete in the same space as streaming and mobile games.
US casino operators have spent years describing their properties as entertainment businesses, not just gambling halls. That language aligns with how leisure is currently consumed, and it also explains why casino-adjacent formats have grown on phones, including sweepstakes casinos that offer prize-based play using virtual coins rather than direct wagering.
Streaming and mobile entertainment sit within arm’s reach, and the trip to a casino has to justify itself as an experience, not only as a wager, while many people comparing at-home options end up looking for the best social casino sites as part of that wider entertainment mix.
The Attention Economy Has a New Baseline
Nielsen reported that streaming accounted for 44.8% of TV viewership in May 2025, surpassing the combined share of broadcast and cable for the first time. (Nielsen, The Gauge press release, June 17, 2025).
Nielsen CEO Karthik Rao framed the milestone as a marker of how programming strategies have shifted across platforms.
It’s fitting that this inflection point coincides with the fourth anniversary of Nielsen’s The Gauge.”
(Nielsen CEO Karthik Rao, June 17, 2025)
Mobile entertainment has expanded in parallel, driven by short sessions that stack into a daily habit. Sensor Tower reported that mobile gaming in-app purchase revenue rose 4% year over year in 2024, while time spent increased 8% and sessions rose 12%. (Sensor Tower, State of Mobile Gaming 2025).
Casinos Have Been Moving Beyond the Gaming Floor for Decades
The competitive frame becomes clearer in the revenue mix. Data compiled by the UNLV Center for Gaming Research shows that, on the Las Vegas Strip, gaming win fell from 59% of total revenue in the mid-1980s to 35% by fiscal year 2024, alongside growth in rooms, food, and another category tied to entertainment and retail.
As gambling becomes a smaller share of the pie, resorts rely more heavily on experiences that cannot be replicated at home, such as hotel stays, dining, nightlife, and ticketed entertainment.
Live events function as the anti-pause button
Streaming and mobile games excel at convenience. Casino resorts lean on scheduled experiences that require presence, from concert residencies to sports weekends and conventions that fill rooms and restaurants even when gaming volumes soften.
The Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority reported 41.7 million visitors in 2024 and 6.0 million in convention attendance, with an annual average occupancy rate of 83.6%. (LVCVA Research Center, 2024 annual totals).
The same logic plays out across the country: casino theaters hosting touring acts, sportsbooks built around game-day crowds, and event calendars that pull in guests who might not describe themselves as gamblers.
Pricing and Friction Have Become Part of the Competition
When entertainment alternatives are abundant, value perception becomes harder to ignore. At home, the marginal cost of another episode is close to zero. On a resort property, visitors encounter a layered bill, rooms, food, beverages, fees, and minimums.
In October 2025, MGM Resorts CEO Bill Hornbuckle acknowledged that pricing at budget properties had become a reputational issue after viral posts highlighted costs.
“When we think about pricing and things that got everyone’s attention, whether it was the infamous bottle of water or a Starbucks coffee at Excalibur that cost $12, shame on us.”
(Bill Hornbuckle, MGM Resorts earnings call, quoted by Las Vegas Review-Journal, Oct. 30, 2025)
A Las Vegas Review-Journal editorial that week reported Caesars Entertainment CEO Tom Reeg making a similar concession about prices on the Strip.
“I don’t discount that there are areas in our business and in Las Vegas that might have gotten over their skis pricing-wise.”
(Tom Reeg, Caesars Entertainment, quoted by Las Vegas Review-Journal, Oct. 30, 2025)
Loyalty Ecosystems Turn the Trip Into a Repeatable Habit
Streaming platforms compete with recommendation engines and retention mechanics. Casinos have their own version through loyalty programs that tie together hotel rates, dining comps, event access, and, increasingly, mobile accounts.
The American Gaming Association reported that online gaming represented 30% of nationwide commercial gaming revenue in 2024, totaling $21.54 billion.
For operators with both physical properties and digital products, loyalty acts as connective tissue. The customer relationship can stretch from an app session to an on-property stay without changing brands.
Digital gambling expands the battlefield and blurs categories
US casino companies have also moved into the same device-based entertainment mix they compete against. The AGA reported 2024 sports betting revenue of $13.71 billion and iGaming revenue of $8.41 billion in states with full-scale legal online casino markets. (American Gaming Association, press release, Feb. 19, 2025). Those products extend casino brands into the hours between trips, while placing them in direct competition with other apps vying for attention.
Those products extend casino brands into the hours between trips, while placing them in direct competition with other apps vying for attention.
Outside Las Vegas, The Same Pressure is Reshaping Regional Properties
The integrated resort logic is not confined to the Strip. Across the US, casino properties have leaned into food halls, sportsbooks, spas, and small theaters, facilities designed to widen the audience beyond traditional gamblers.
The national revenue picture suggests operators still have room to invest. The AGA put total US commercial gaming revenue at $71.92 billion in 2024, the fourth straight annual record.
“In 2024, Americans embraced the diverse legal gaming options available to them.”
(Bill Miller, AGA President and CEO, Feb. 19, 2025)
Final Thoughts
The competition with streaming and mobile entertainment is less about copying the couch and more about selling what the sofa cannot deliver: shared, in-person time. That is why casinos continue to build stages, sportsbooks, dining districts, and convention capacity alongside slot banks.
At the same time, pricing narratives travel quickly, and digital gambling brings casino brands onto the same screens they are trying to pull people away from. The result is an industry that increasingly behaves like an entertainment platform with a physical address.