COVID appears to have been the excuse to kill off the casino buffets, which did suck. Most of the casinos still offer reasonably affordable fast casual stuff.

(Just avoid Eataly, omg, overpriced, overrated, etc).

Show tickets are still quite reasonable, especially if you can puppy-dog-eye a discount out of your hotel's concierge. Food is variable.

But yeah, there's a lot of "Get people to walk across the casino floor and they'll sit down" going on for sure. I can't let it work on me, too high risk, but I can see it. Had it not been so abysmally hot they might have got me on the alcohol, but it was hot even for Vegas, I was dehydrating easily, and I decided alcohol wasn't smart.

The waiter in China Poblano heard that and gave me a second agua fresca free. He didn't say it was for being a smart person, but...

...I was quite concerned about the number of people walking around in 118 degrees with giant cocktails. Fast route to heat illness, that. If it had been a more normal 100 degrees, I would have got a daiquiri ;). Instead, we got gelato.