Slimming Sin City: Are Ozempic and GLP-1 drugs draining Las Vegas’ thrill?
The rising usage of GLP-1 medications among Americans is well-documented as people turn to them to lose weight. A recent post from billionaire Matthew Prince has garnered attention for his claim that drugs like Ozempic are contributing to a decline in visitors to Las Vegas.
Prince believes those drugs kill addictive and indulgent behaviors, essentially everything that gave Sin City its famous nickname.
An expert Straight Arrow News spoke with said that the theory is certainly possible.
“I don’t know how much these drugs are impacting, specifically, Las Vegas, but the concept I agree with,” Dr. Eduardo Grunvald, medical director at the University of California, San Diego Center for Advanced Weight Management, told SAN.
How GLP-1s work
Drugs like Ozempic, Mounjaro and Wegovy were clinically approved to treat Type 2 diabetes. However, people and pharmaceutical companies began to realize that these drugs can help people lose weight.
In essence, these drugs help make you feel full and less hungry.
“That’s really what these hormones, these drugs are doing,” Grunvald said. “They are making you feel that sense of satiety for prolonged periods of time, and hence you eat less and lose weight.”
A study earlier this year showed those same drugs could even mitigate alcohol abuse.
Grunvald said the same way the drugs prevent indulgent eating, they could be doing the same for other addictions. Not just by curbing the initial want but also the satisfactory “reward” feeling people get afterwards.
“Those same systems are also hijacked when you have addictive behaviors, right?” Grunvald said. “So, whether it be alcohol or drugs or less common things like gambling, right? All those behaviors give you a reward. And what we think is happening is that because you’re suppressing those same systems in the brain, you get, number one, less desire for those things, and also less reward from those things.”
Grunvald said he’s seen it in his patients, especially with alcohol.
“What my patients tell me is that they just lose that desire to have that drink, or even if they do drink, they don’t have the same intensity of that reward from drinking alcohol,” Grunvald said.
Vegas tourism decline
While there are no direct studies linking the use of GLP-1s to behaviors in Las Vegas, there is plenty of data on the decline of Vegas tourism.
Flight passengers to Vegas declined 10% in November despite the city hosting the Grand Prix. That marked the 10th straight month of declining numbers at the airport.
Occupancy at Vegas hotels dropped dramatically in the summer months, showing the largest dips of any top 25 market in the U.S.
There are plenty of theories on why the numbers are dropping so significantly, including Prince’s thought that indulgence-curbing drugs are part of the decline.
Other possible concerns include rising prices and resort fees in the city, along with ongoing inflation and worries about the overall economy.
International visitation numbers are also down significantly, potentially in part due to the Trump administration’s policies.
GLP-1s and Vegas
There’s currently a thread on TripAdvisor titled “Enjoying Vegas when your GLP-1 medications kill the thrill.”
The original poster said his GLP-1 medications have taken away the desire to gamble, drink and smoke.
“Has anyone else experienced this?” the poster wrote. “I’m way too young to spend all my free time in my hotel room returning emails. The bright side: My A1C looks great and I’ve lost 100lbs. Just looking for tips on how to bring the Vegas magic back when the things I once loved are no longer appealing.”
The short answer to that poster’s question is yes.
The thread received numerous responses from people experiencing the same thing.
“The side effect of taking away joy in things I was once passionate about (like Vegas) has been an adjustment,” another post reads.
Vegas, of course, relies heavily on gambling, drinking and eating for revenue.
“These drugs are going to — in some people, not everybody — going to affect the drive to partake in those behaviors,” Grunvald said.
As the usage of these medications continues to increase and the government works to make them more affordable, further studies will be required to see how much it’s impacting Sin City.
“Whether that affects other things like gambling and the other sinful behaviors that we think of with Las Vegas, that I think remains to be determined,” Grunvald said.
The post Slimming Sin City: Are Ozempic and GLP-1 drugs draining Las Vegas’ thrill? appeared first on Straight Arrow News.
Ella Rae Greene, Editor In Chief
