Something like fifteen years ago I was in Vegas for bachelor party and we had the requisite night out at a strip club. A friend and I left at some point and shared a cab back to the hotel. The cab driver tried to talk us going to one of those legal brothels outside of town. I remember it being insanely expensive. He gave us a little menu, and it was just like a restaurant menu, with a list of pricing for various acts and combinations.
He wanted to charge us like $120 for the drive out there and back and then we would have had to pay for the service. The cabbie would have certainly got a cut from that. They must make all of their money off of drink rubes who don’t know any better.
I think this is pretty much the ONLY consideration. The very simple answer to the OP’s question is that the way prostitution laws are written and enforced in this country (as well as most of the western world) make it extremely unlikely that a client is going to get in legal trouble patronizing an illegal prostitute. That means that legality really isn’t that big of a draw.
Most of the other things people have mentioned in this thread are true, but a lot of them are more symptoms of the legal brothels’ unpopularity than the cause. If there actually was a good chance of getting caught using the illegal options in town, legality would start to become a major bonus for most customers and no doubt the dingy trailer park brothels would give way to more reputable-looking establishments and things like the distance and regulatory costs would become minor concerns.
Besides all the very valid points mentioned here, I think the premise that a brothel would be like a ‘license to print money’ could be chalenged as well.
Typically in prostitution, most of the money (if not all of it) goes to the ladies that provide the service. It is very difficult to get a business model going that makes the owner of the premises a lot of money. From what I read here, the house takes half in Nevada? That might be the biggest underlying reason for the large price differential with the illegal providers, which in turn causes the relative low success of these brothels.
Besides the prices being very high, many men don’t like the idea of their money going to a middle man. The idea that half of what you fork over goes to the fat guy that sits in the office, feels like a waste.
As far as I have noticed, the legal brothels I’ve seen don’t make that much money at all. There will be far more money being made by the girls than by the club owners. If you don’t want to give the impression of ‘exploiting’ the girls, you can really only make money by charging entry to the club, or rent for a room, charging for drinks and other side issues. This will always be far less than what gets payed for the actual sex. In all honesty of the brothels I know, it is generally expected they mostly make money by laundering ‘illegal earnings’… or by what they charge the girls to work there (but that only works if there are enough clients for the girls to earn a bit).
Unlike gambling etc. it is almost impossible to make casino-like profits, just by providing a ‘marketplace’. You’ll typically always end up with many ‘freelancers’ that do fairly well, but it would be impossible to incorporate this into a larger profitable entity.
I can tell you that here in Thailand, if a customer takes a bargirl off premises, he pays what’s called a barfine to the bar. Typically 400-600 baht (US$12.50 to $18.75). The theory is the fewer girls, the less enticing for customers to enter the bar, so you’re compensating the bar for lost business. The bar usually splits half that with the girl. Then the girl gets all the money agreed on with the customer for her services.
If the sex is on premises – for example, if there is an on-site short-time room or it’s a BJ bar – the girl and the bar usually split it down the middle, but she keeps all of any tip you give.
I have known a fair share of bar and brothel owners, and that is correct that it is difficult to come up with a winning formula, even in a place like Bangkok. The best way is to make a solid reputation for yourself such as Annie’s Massage, Eden Club or Star of Light while instilling a sense of loyalty among the staff to where they don’t want to work anyplace else, but that’s easier said than done. That’s probably the biggest headache among bar and brothel owners here, the girls leaving for the slightest reason. It’s really difficult to keep skilled help. People make jokes about it here, but I’ve seen how difficult it can be.
My understanding (albeit not firsthand) is that the Nevada brothels operate under a fairly complicated independent contractor system similar to the way most strip clubs operate in the states. That means there’s usually a combination of a fee for just using the facilities (and, more importantly, the licence) of the brothel and maybe a flat rate fee for each client. That’s a big reason for the dickering over price-- the worker’s marginal costs are essentially zero so anything she charges beyond the fees are pure profit.
But, more generally, I don’t think that’s really the issue with the price differential or the general unpopularity. It used to be that the “management costs” were far higher when working illegally. It wasn’t until relatively recently that the internet has made it practical and relatively safe for illegal sex workers to work independently. Even back when it was the difference between paying the overhead of a brothel out in the middle of nowhere and paying the overhead of a pimp/shady escort agency in town, the rural brothels still weren’t any more popular.
I think the situation is more that the customers would be angry if their ladyboy turned out to be an actual lady.
What, are you kidding? It’s the tourists who usually get roughed up by the ladyboys. These can be some vicious little bastards (bitches?), don’t be fooled by their feminine exterior. On lower Sukhumvit Road for a while, there was a bad problem with gangs of ladyboys – I’m not making this up – swarming all over you like a bad Monty Python skit and relieving you of your wallet and phone. Whenever I saw them coming, I threw all subtlety out the window and clamped a hand firmly over my wallet until they passed. The police finally cleaned that up.
But then in Sukhumvit Soi 4, near the Nana Plaza red-light area, the street ladyboy hookers started getting very aggressive. The situation peaked when one tourist politely declined “her” advances – witnesses all agreed he was polite in saying “no” – only to be stabbed by the ladyboy for spurning “her.” That’s when the police finally cleaned that up.
In Pattaya, the police deal just about nightly with tourists who have been mugged by ladyboys.
These are some dangerous MoFos, make no mistake about it. They’ve got the upper-body strength of men, and they will kick your ass nine ways to Sunday if you want to start any shit with them. You hear stories about guys being surprised – or so they claim – but I think the best way to get out of that situation is just quietly pay the money and leave, or run screaming out the door, but don’t ever try to get into a fight with a ladyboy, Buddha have mercy.
Sounds like a variation of the one where an older “gentleman” orders a call girl, and when she arrives, opens the door to find his daughter standing there.
In one episode of HBO’s “Cathouse” (or maybe it was Sundance’s “Pleasure for Sale”), one working girl negotiated a $600 party with a client, and her take was $132. Other than that, I got nuthin’.