Westgate Begins Charging for Parking (Sorta)

By Scott Roeben, on February 10 2025
4 min read 7 comments
Las Vegas

One of the few remaining major Las Vegas resorts with free parking has gone over to the dark side.

Westgate now charges $10 a day for self-parking. For some time, the resort has had paid parking for special events, but this isn’t that. This is all day, every day and everything is ruined, again.

That’s sort of the entire story, but the “sorta” makes things more interesting, so hang out with us for a few moments longer, shan’t you?

“Love” feels a little strong, but we enjoy our Westgate visits quite a bit.

Westgate’s free parking was a holdover from a different era in Las Vegas, where men were men, women were women and racists wouldn’t let black performers sleep in the hotels where they performed.

Now, Westgate has joined a long list of casino resorts that charge for parking. We always figured they’d institute a “Lanyard Fee” (Westgate is a big convention hotel) before paid parking, but we can’t be right about everything.

Westgate’s $10 fee is nothing compared to what you’ll get dinged at the vast majority of hotels on the nearby Las Vegas Strip, so there’s that.

Westgate has farmed out its parking payment system to a third party called Metropolis Parking Services.

If that company sounds familiar, and it shouldn’t, it’s because they also run the paid parking at Strat and Oyo. Yes, those casinos previously had free parking. Everybody did. That ship has sailed.

The thing all these places have in common is paying for parking is sort of voluntary.

You don’t get a ticket as you enter, you’re expected to connect with the Metropolis Web site or app and pay online.

We don’t pay for parking at Strat or Oyo because we haven’t figured out how they’re enforcing the system, at all. They say it’s enforced 24/7, we just can’t figure out how that would actually work.

In the case of Westgate, here’s a sign stating the price of parking. The gate goes up and you drive in.

Define “welcome.”

Then there’s a sign with a QR code.

Driving and scanning QR codes. What could go wrong?

We scanned the QR code and it linked to the Metropolis Web site, at which point we waited for two hours and it never connected.

We’re still waiting.

As we were just investigative journalisming, we just turned around and exited. The gate went up, we left.

Here’s one of the signs at the exit. “Just drive out,” it says.

So, they’re scanning license plates. If you don’t pay and come back, will they not let you in? Peak useless.

So, if you haven’t scanned anything or connected to the Metropolis app or Web site, what “account” is being charged?

It’s worth noting Nevada residents get three hours free at Westgate. But even if we didn’t, why would anyone pay with this system? They can’t keep you locked in, that’s unlawful (or false) imprisonment, intentionally restricting another person’s movement within any area without legal authority.

A second sign says, “Gate not opening?” You can scan another QR code or send a text or call someone to open the gate. We trust this is so Westgate and Metropolis aren’t sued for the aforementioned unlawful imprisonment.

Of all the paid parking, voluntary is the best kind.

The whole thing is just wonky.

We’re pretty sure these systems rely heavily on guests paying money out of the goodness of their hearts. If half of guests ignore the request for payment, that’s still a good amount of “found” revenue for Westgate.

They aren’t towing or issuing tickets, so it’s unclear how confusing or annoying guests is a win for Westgate, but everyone else is charging for parking, why not get a few extra bucks from unsuspecting patrons?

We are not a lawyer, so let us know what happens if you visit Westgate and self-park.

In somewhat related news, Westgate just opened its Vegas Loop station. The Vegas Loop is an underground tunnel system for Tesla vehicles, an underground rideshare system. It sounds sort of stupid when you say it like that, but with jazz hands, it’s awesome.

The Vegas Loop is a wonderful way to zip back and forth to the Las Vegas Convention Center and the best news is taxpayers aren’t paying for it, Bond villain and “Roman salute” practitioner Elon Musk is. Resorts pay for their own stations.

For better or worse, paid parking is here to stay and Westgate doesn’t seem to think it will deter people from visiting the off-Strip resort.

To their credit, Westgate has been creating some fun themed suites, so take a look at the themed hotel rooms we’d like to see.

There’s been a lot of talk about a “pain point” for Las Vegas visitors, and parking fees are among their gripes about feeling nickel-and-dimed. It’s all fun and games until a thousand people reply to a Tweet saying they have been priced out of Las Vegas and are visiting less often or not at all. Awkward.

When people don’t come to Las Vegas for the Super Bowl, and casino revenue is flat or down for six months straight, it’s probably time to listen.