Nevada: August revenue up 5.5% statewide

Gaming revenue across Nevada is up from last year by 5.49%, to $1.23bn for August, with growth principally driven by increases of engagement with American football, baseball and sports parlay cards. 

Slots, however, remain the most profitable gaming product overall, generating $816m, nearly double the amount generated by table, counter and card games combined with sports and racing betting.

The anticipation for the NFL kick-off in early September seems to have driven up betting activity and mobile betting was up by nearly 100%. 

In most regions across the state revenue was up, with a decrease in takings from slots being the most likely reason that an area would exhibit a slight shrinking of revenue. 

In some of the less busy parts of Nevada there is more of a reliance on slot machines than table games, for instance in the Washoe County Reno where overall revenue had dipped by 0.58%. 

A trend across most of the slot results were that increased use of the $5 machines propped up downturn in growth of other denominations. 

This was particularly true on the Las Vegas Strip where every type of slot was down except for the $5 and multi-denomination – takings for the $5 machines here was over $3m, an increase of around 118%. 

Indeed the Strip was another location in which Football and Baseball were doing most of the heavy lifting in terms of growth – overall sports pool in the state’s casino hub was up 178% to nearly $21m. 

As for table games, baccarat continues to prove to be one of most resilient chanels of growth and revenue, partially perhaps due to the high stakes and high value players who often prefer the game.

The $117m generated in revenue by baccarat makes it by and far and away the most valuable table game, with 21 (blackjack) the only other game to pass the $100m mark.

Good to know: The ransomware that disrupted the Nevada Gaming Control Board last month also shut down a number of other state-run agencies and has been blamed on ‘malicious actors’ 

The modest but largely uniform growth patterns across the state reflected the last monthly report illustrating Nevada’s gambling activity in July. 

A delay to July’s gaming results was due to a “sophisticated, ransomware-based” cyberattack – while the cause of this has so far been blamed on nothing more specific than bad actors, investigations are still ongoing. 

It remains to be seen what other effects the widespread cyberattack will have had and may continue to have and if there will be a knock-on impact on September’s results. 

Most services however are now back online. 

Rory Calland

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