If you thought it was hard to win money in Las Vegas, casinos are making it even harder for visitors to win with lower payouts on blackjack hands, riskier bets on some roulette wheels and more cash required to play at many game tables.

Paying out lower winnings to lower-end gamblers boosts casino profits as tens of millions of tourists flock to the city each year for shows, food, and entertainment and dreams of winning big in the casino.

In addition to smaller winnings, visitors are paying more to visit Las Vegas. Prices for hotel rooms, concerts and restaurants have surged in recent years, Wall Street Journal reported.

The average cost per night for accommodation in Las Vegas was $170.98 in 2022, up about 25 percent from the $137.37 average in 2021.

The number of visitors to Las Vegas in 2022 fell short of pre-pandemic 2019 levels, but tourists spent a record of almost $8.3 billion gambling in casinos, according to tourism officials. The 2022 gambling revenue exceeded pre-pandemic revenue by more than 25 percent, according to state regulators.

Data show that the two biggest operators on the Strip, MGM Resorts and Caesars, have reduced payouts for winning hands at blackjack at many of their tables.

Blackjack, which historically paid out a ratio of 3:2 when a player hit 21 on the first two cards, is now paying out at 6:5, according to Vegas Advantage, a gambling news and data company.

“Once you step foot into a casino and exchange your money for chips, you’ve sold away your only advantage: staying out of the casino to begin with,” Chris Neiger wrote. “Casinos can bring great shows, food, and entertainment, but statistically, they won’t bring you much more than that.”

Derek Van Nostran, an Atlanta blackjack fan who has visited the Strip often, said, “Now, it is almost not worth flying to Vegas to play blackjack.”

Every game you play at a casino has a statistical probability against you winning every time, Neiger wrote. “While this house advantage varies for each game, it ultimately helps to ensure that over time, the casino won’t lose money to gamblers.”

Casino executives say table games are labor-intensive and expensive to operate. The number of tables offered at Strip casinos was down about 19 percent from a decade ago, according to state records.

Automated games, on the other hand, such as electronic blackjack and roulette, which don’t require a dealer, are counted as slot machines in Nevada. Slot machines posted a record $4.6 billion in 2022, up 15 percent over the previous record in 2021, according to state data. 

Las Vegas visitors on vacation might not notice or care about casinos’ increased advantage, said Bill Zender, a casino consultant who focuses on table-game management. But casinos risk losing business over time, he said.

“If you go into a casino and gamble, and you lose your money fairly quickly almost every time, you don’t feel you’re getting the bang for your buck.”

By charging visitors more to gamble and decreasing their chances of winning, casinos apparently feel they can afford to lose lower-end gamblers and be picky with the kind of gamblers they want, Fortune reported. 

Vegas is attracting stars such as Taylor Swift and K-pop sensation BTS to Allegiant Stadium, the new home of the Raiders NFL football team since 2020. 

Such events could be “bringing in kind of a higher tier clientele, if you will, that’s replacing maybe lower tiers or mid tiers, and that’s what’s adding to the sustainability of these gaming revenue numbers,” said Michael Lawton, a senior economic analyst with the Nevada Gaming Control Board.

“You’re kicking out the lowest end,” said Caesars Entertainment CEO Tom Reeg during a call with analysts. “I see no reason that that needs to stop or would stop.”