The sharp decline in tourism to Las Vegas can be blamed on a long hangover from Covid-19 and sky-high prices in hotels and casinos, according to Pawn Stars host Rick Harrison. 

The TV host and Las Vegas icon said the days when tourists enjoyed lockdown stimulus checks and had ‘tons of money to spend’ may be over, but prices in Sin City remain high from the inflation it caused. 

‘I think it’s the COVID hangover,’ he told Fox News. 

‘For a couple of years, everybody was just making crazy COVID money. The government was giving everybody money left and right.’ 

Harrison also said he ‘blames the casinos on the Strip a little bit, arguing that ‘they’ve gotten a little insane with their prices.’ 

‘I’ve heard so many people complain,’ he continued. 

‘They go to a hotel, they go to check out. And there’s $500 in stupid fees on their bills — resort fees and parking fees and this fee and that fee.’ 

Harrison’s grumblings over prices in Las Vegas comes after a stunned tourist went viral when they shared a video showing the huge markups hotels had on their menus – including a bucket of six Coors lights priced at a staggering $76.99, and 24 cold ones running up to $290.99 – a near 15 times increase from its usual $20 price. 

The sharp decline in tourism to Las Vegas can be blamed on a long hangover from Covid-19 and sky-high prices in hotels and casinos, according to Pawn Stars host Rick Harrison

Harrison slammed casinos and hotels for ‘going a little insane with their prices’ as he warned that the days where tourists enjoyed spending ‘tons of money’ may be over

Harrison – who charges close to $60 for a meet and greet session with him at his pawn shop – said that for Las Vegas to survive, it would need to learn a hard lesson through ‘financial Darwinism.’ 

‘You have to evolve or die. You have to give your customers what they want and not p*** your customers off,’ he said. 

The Pawn Stars host said that while much of Sin City has been suffering, he has enjoyed a good time in his business, success that he attributes to 37-years of building a ‘loyal following.’  

‘Customers need be happy to be with you. And it’s just a general — it’s a good business plan,’ he said. 

‘I think trying to scrape every single penny you can out of a customer, eventually, is going to turn your customer off. I just think that the casinos on the Strip have to straighten out a little bit.’  

It comes after a shock new report to Las Vegas’s Convention and Visitors Authority warned that the number of airline passengers arriving at the city will continue to plummet in the coming months.

Las Vegas’s sharp decline in tourism appears set to continue as its major airport hub, Harry Reid International Airport (pictured), has reportedly prepared for a staggering drop in visitor numbers to continue for the rest of the year 

The tourism body was told in the report by Ailevon Pacific Aviation Consulting that capacity rates at the gambling hotspot’s Harry Reid International Airport are forecast to drop dramatically in the second half of 2025.

They warned the number of inbound passengers will plunge to around 95,000 seats per day for the rest of the year – a worrying prediction that represents a 2.3 percent fall from 2024 numbers. 

The body also recently shared numbers that showed that only 3.1 million people visited the city in June, which was down 11.3 percent compared to last year

The decline is largely being fueled by a sharp 18.5 percent drop-off in traffic from Canada, which typically comprises the largest share of international visitors to the Nevada city, per the Las Vegas Review Journal.

The number of Canadian passengers flying to Las Vegas fell to an average of 2,412 per day this year, according to the report – blamed by some on the election of Donald Trump to the presidency in January and his subsequent jibes at Canada. 

The loss of Canadian tourists has cancelled out gains from other continents, including a 31.7 percent increase in airline capacity from Asia and a 21.6 percent increase jump from Europe excluding the United Kingdom.

Trump quickly launched a hostile attack on the country and threatened to make it America’s ’51st state’ if it did not submit to his tariff demands.

The loss in tourism in Las Vegas throughout 2025 was blamed by some on the election of Donald Trump to the presidency in January, as he has routinely antagonized Canadians, who made up most of the 

With Canadians making up a large part of all tourism to Sin City, Trump’s antagonism of its residents may have played a role.

As the downward trend was beginning to snowball in February, Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority President and CEO Steve Hill told the Journal that he was hearing from many angry Canadians about the president.

‘There’s an awful lot of the anecdotal conversation around Canadians being angry and upset about tariffs and talk around annexing the country,’ he said.

‘We’ve seen consumer confidence numbers drop pretty significantly over the past couple of months.’

In May, the World Travel & Tourism Council also reported that in its forecasts for 2025, the US nationwide was set to lose $12.5 billion in international visitor spending.

‘While other nations are rolling out the welcome mat, the U.S. government is putting up the ‘closed’ sign,” Julia Simpson, the council’s president and CEO, said in a news release at the time.