Six MGM Resorts Casinos Lose In-Person Concierge Services

By Scott Roeben, on April 28 2025
4 min read 9 comments
Las Vegas

As we’ve shared over the last few months, MGM Resorts has been consolidating and streamlining its operations resulting in layoffs. The most recent casualty: Concierge desks.

MGM Resorts is closing in-person concierge desks at six of its Las Vegas resorts: MGM Grand, New York-New York, Park MGM, Mandalay Bay, Signature and Vdara. Signature and Vdara don’t have casinos, so it’s hard to care, but we’re including them in our story because, well, journalism or whatever.

The plug was pulled on those concierge desks on April 28, 2025.

“Concierge” comes from the Latin word “conservus” meaning “fellow slave.” Now may be a good time for a rebrand, concierges.

We got wind of the first round of cuts on April 24, 2025.

Also in April, we shared news of the closure of in-house laundry services at Excalibur, Luxor and Mandalay Bay.

Prior to that, it was Housekeeping Dispatch.

Before that, it was MGM Resorts’ Contact Center, the folks who take your reservations by phone. Yes, people still make reservations by phone.

Back in March, cuts included valet, bell desks and doorpersons at select casinos.

While these moves come during a time of economic chaos, the layoffs shouldn’t really be attributed to reduced business levels. Although, those challenges loom large on the horizon.

MGM Resorts does internal evaluations routinely, and these changes and consolidations and staff reductions are an attempt to increase efficiency and lower costs. You know, Capitalism stuff.

It’s not just staffing. For example, the Penthouse Lounge at Mandalay Bay closed.

MGM Resorts says these changes reflect customer trends and are in response to customer tastes and choices. Specifically, certain services just aren’t used as much as they have been in the past, especially at mid-tier resorts.

This has echoes of when companies say guests demand resort fees for convenience. “Bundling is a better value!” You know what’s a better value? Not having resort fees!

Not to make it awkward, but why would someone use a concierge desk when they have the Internet in their pocket? Or purse. Or wherever women keep their phones. We get the feeling one should never look in a woman’s purse. It has to be mortifying, right? That’s where all the secrets are kept. Guys pretty much think there’s one thing for lips. Chapstick. The minute you look into a woman’s purse, the world turns upside down. There are glosses and tints and stains and powders and liners and balms and conditioners and scrubs and oils and serums and salves and don’t even get us started on lip mousse. There are an estimated 12,000 products intended for lips on the market. This is why handbags are sometimes the size of modern aircraft carriers.

Old-timey concierges were the kings (and queens, but mostly kings) of Las Vegas hook-ups back in the day.

Now, not so much, from our experience.

Back in 2014, Caesars Entertainment turned its concierge desks over to an outside company. Posing as real concierges, they hawked show tickets. We heard they brought back actual concierges, but we haven’t looked into it lately. Still, caveat emptor.

Real concierges are a rare breed. The best are part of an elite organization, Les Clefs d’Or. You can tell them by their crossed gold keys lapel pins.

We took this photo in 2012 in anticipation of this blog post. Accept no substitutes.

The closure of concierge desks isn’t going to have a big impact on a typical Las Vegas visit, and a good number of the folks being let go (MGM Resorts claims fewer than 35, a source involved in the situation tells us it’s closer to 60) will be absorbed into other positions at the company, but it’s still interesting to see how big casino companies are questioning their inherited costs and departments and services.

Big picture: MGM Resorts has painted itself into a corner. It doesn’t own anything (but its player database). Vici Properties owns, MGM Resorts operates. MGM is a tenant and rents go up whether or not business levels do. That means growth in visitation and revenue has to happen, but that’s not reality. Las Vegas visitation levels have been flat or down for some time, in part due to commoditization (the proliferation of legalized gambling elsewhere), but also a changing perception of Las Vegas. That perception change: Las Vegas is nickel-and-diming visitors and has priced out a lot of longtime fans. When did that perception start to change? Arguably, when MGM Resorts started the practice of paid parking at Strip casinos. (Casinos were losing money at that time, too. They generate a lot of revenue, but they also have crushing debt loads.) Now, MGM Resorts has to find revenue (by endlessly increasing nuisance fees) or cut costs (through staff reductions) to increase margins to try and appease impatient stockholders. There have been rumors of a leadership shake-up at MGM Resorts, which hasn’t transpired yet, but eight key (expensive) executives in the company have been let go along with the front line folks.

It’s hard to fault MGM Resorts for streamlining and eliminating redundancies, but at what point is the fat trimmed too much? How does checking in with a kiosk rather than a human affect your Las Vegas experience? When does the goal of increasing margins erode service levels? How long can casinos ignore feedback from visitors that their magical Vegas memories can’t be replicated anymore? How many fees before a pain point deters visitors? How many times do we have to end our story with questions because we don’t have good answers? All of them, apparently? Was that even a question?