Vegas Missing Canadians
One downtown casino owner is doing everything he can to get Canadians back to Las Vegas—and it’s a smart signal of where the city’s tourism fight is right now.
Derek Stevens, the owner behind Circa, The D Las Vegas, and the Golden Gate, has rolled out a bold “at par” promotion aimed directly at Canadian travelers: spend Canadian dollars like they’re U.S. dollars across his properties. In real terms, Stevens is choosing to absorb the exchange-rate gap so Canadians feel an immediate discount the moment they arrive. That’s not a small move—when the Canadian dollar is weaker, that difference can meaningfully change the cost of a weekend, especially for rooms, food, and entertainment. It’s a pricing play, but it’s also a psychological one: make the decision easy and remove the “Vegas is too expensive right now” barrier in one shot.
The campaign also includes extra incentives designed to kick-start spending and energy downtown, like promotional slot play and perks across the three properties. Stevens has marketed it like an open invitation—come back, we want you here—and the message is clearly built to travel fast online. Downtown Vegas has always thrived when it feels personal, loud, and welcoming, and this is exactly that kind of approach.
The backdrop is important. A downturn in foreign visitors has become a meaningful part of the broader “Vegas is slowing” conversation. International travelers don’t just fill rooms; they spend on shows, nightlife, restaurants, and table games, and they tend to stay longer and make their trip more of an event. When that pipeline softens, it hits revenue in a way that’s hard to replace purely with domestic weekend traffic.
At the same time, this is where the Las Vegas story gets nuanced. Downtown and the high-end Strip still look and feel like they’re thriving—premium rooms, big-event weekends, packed casinos, and strong high-limit play. Vegas can be booming at the top while still feeling pressure in the middle. That’s why promotions like this matter: they’re less about desperation and more about protecting volume and momentum before the slowdown becomes a habit.
And there’s another piece here that needs to be said out loud: the overall sentiment from Canadians isn’t really about Las Vegas. It’s about the broader political climate and the feeling of being targeted or disrespected by the current U.S. posture—especially from the Trump administration. For a lot of Canadians, the hesitation isn’t “we don’t like Vegas,” it’s “do we want to travel to the U.S. right now?” Stevens isn’t trying to solve international politics, but he is doing what Vegas has always done best: meeting the moment with a creative offer and a direct, human message.
In a city built on reinvention, one operator leaning in this aggressively is a reminder: the smartest players don’t wait for demand to return—they go out and win it back.
