Vegas Hotels Beat Price-Fixing Rap: Is Fair Pricing Dead in Sin City?

The Strip’s Price-Fixing Scam Exposed

The Ninth Circuit just handed Vegas hotels a get-out-of-jail-free card on August 15, 2025, but your wallet’s still getting mugged by their sneaky rate hikes.

I once got hosed with a $300 “bargain” room during a convention, same inflated price everywhere, like the Strip was in on a bad joke.

Here’s the no-BS scoop on how they got away with it and how to fight back.

The Ninth Circuit just gave MGM, Caesars, Wynn, and other Strip giants a free pass to keep jacking up room rates with shady software. Is this the way that AI and algorithms are trying to destroy our Vegas Vacation?

I’m Jason, your ex-Apple strategist turned Vegas truth-teller, and I’ve been pissed about this since I saw identical $350/night rates across five hotels for a weekend trip.

It wasn’t a competition; it’s a cartel in suits, and the courts are letting them run wild. Last April, I tried booking a quick getaway during NAB, and every damn hotel quoted $350 for a standard room, like they were reading from the same algorithm script.

This is the story of a lawsuit that tried to take them down, the tech they’re using to screw you, and how low-rollers like us can still win in Sin City. Let’s unpack the scam, no fluff, just truth.

In January 2023, two travelers sued a swarm of Strip hotels, MGM Resorts, Caesars Entertainment, Wynn Resorts, Treasure Island, Cosmopolitan (now MGM-owned), and Virgin Hotels, for allegedly using Rainmaker software by Cendyn to artificially inflate room rates.

The claim?

These hotels fed sensitive pricing data into a shared algorithm, allowing them to “recommend” rates that magically matched those of their competitors, without a single backroom cigar session.

You’ve been there: shopping for a room and every hotel’s quoting the same $250 “bargain” for a standard room during a weekend. No competition, just synchronized price hikes. Reuters called it a “tech-assisted cartel,” and CBS News reported Vegas hotel revenue hit $3.2 billion in 2023, much of it from these inflated rates. It’s like the mob days, but with code instead of concrete shoes.