Short-term rentals booked through platforms such as Airbnb and Vrbo can be an attractive option for large families or groups visiting Las Vegas and looking to save a buck and avoid paying for several hotel rooms. However, permits for short term rentals in Southern Nevada are hard to come by.

Mark Tremblay, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, saw a connection between casinos using dynamic pricing for room rates and rolling them out elsewhere in the business. “It is clear that this is a trend we will see moving forward as physical stores begin to use digital price tags more frequently,” Tremblay told the Review-Journal.

It can be difficult for hotels and casinos off the Las Vegas Strip to survive with all the upscale competition that's just a few miles down the road. Some off-Strip resorts have managed to survive for decades, but even legacy properties are vulnerable to economic uncertainty.

On the first day of her first-ever trip to Las Vegas, Julie Brenner said the cost of a bottle of water caught her attention. The 29-year-old from Miami said she remembered the price because even in her hometown, paying more than $5 for water would seem high. That is why it stood out to her when the very next day, the same bottle from the same store was a different price.

Over the past decade or so, various cities throughout the United States have developed legislation or policies geared toward regulating short-term rentals, a market which is dominated by San Francisco-based tech company Airbnb. Recently an appeals court in Dallas, Texas, rejected the city’s 2023 ordinance to ban most short-term rentals located in single family zones. The Dallas Short-Term Rental Alliance argued that—under Texas law—they had a right to lease their properties.

Mark Tremblay, an assistant professor of economics at UNLV, is analyzing how fee transparency in short-term rentals may influence consumer and host behavior in pricing.

As federal regulators finalize rules requiring ticket and hotel sellers reveal hidden "junk fees" to prohibit "bait-and-switch pricing" and other practices that hide total prices in live-event and short-term lodging industries, researchers at UNLV are looking into the impact of pricing transparency.

In Las Vegas, ridesharing apps like Uber and Lyft, and short-term rental apps like Airbnb have changed — really changed — the landscape for taxi companies and, perhaps, hotels. In July 2014, for instance, the Nevada Taxicab Authority said cab drivers gave more than 2 million rides to customers. In July of this year, that was down about 50% to around a million riders. A big question, though, is if things are changing back. And there’s some evidence indicating that it might be doing just that.