THE deal was: Businesses gave them US$20 ($30) a passenger, and Las Vegas taxi drivers would recommend that business to whoever hopped into their cab.

It was part of the "green handshake" culture, where firms and shops traded cash and favours for recommendations from doormen, concierges, limousine drivers and cabbies, reported The Los Angeles Times.

Strip clubs routinely pay drivers to steer bachelor parties or frat boys their way, and they are so valued - cabbies are the de facto guides for Las Vegas' millions of visitors - that casinos routinely hold "driver appreciation" events.

But the recession has strained the once-smooth partnership.

Two clubs that said they paid up to US$20,000 a month to cabbies for a third of their guests recently sued rivals that paid cabbies more.

Some places now pay as much as US$70, compared to the previous US$20 rate.

Said one club employee: "My advertising dollars get (a passenger) in the cab and then a driver says, 'Oh, it's burned down' or 'The girls are ugly'. If they go somewhere else, I've just been robbed."

But the cabbies claim they're suffering too.

Last December, according to the Taxicab Authority, revenue was down almost 14 per cent, compared to the same period in 2007, and the number of trips fell by 20 per cent.

"You used to do two to three trips an hour," said Mr Greg Bambic, president of the non-profit Professional Drivers Association.

"Now you're lucky to do one, and you have to hustle. There are so many cabs, we're getting chased off stands."