Nevada Casinos Witness A Dip In Revenue In February

Nevada’s casinos saw gaming revenue in February decline by 4.48 percent over the same period last year to hit $946.6 million, according to latest official data.

The Nevada Gaming Control Board figures however show that the gaming win was up by 2.71 percent for the fiscal year July 1, 2016 to February 2017.

Clark County witnessed a drop of 4.35 percent for the month and a growth of 2.82 percent for the year.

The Las Vegas Strip performed a little worse, with gaming wins falling by 5 percent to $542 million although downtown Las Vegas climbed by 2.22 percent in February.

Other regions saw higher drops during the month of February. Boulder Strip was down 9.12 percent in February, but for the fiscal year it was up by .11 percent. The North Las Vegas gaming win for February was down by 7 percent but was up 1.69 percent for the fiscal year.

KTNV Channel 13 Las Vegas

According to Michael Lawton, a senior research analyst from Nevada’s Gaming Control Board, one of the reasons for the variation in performance over the last year was due to the presence of an extra day in February 2016. He said that this accounted for 3 percent of the difference.

An additional reason highlighted by Lawton was that last year the impact of the Chinese New Year was fully experienced within February, but this year since the festival was on January 28, there was spillover into February as well. He recommended taking a consolidated view of the revenue for better understanding.

In a statement Michael Lawson said,

If you look at the Strip, January and February combined, the win was up 4.4 percent compared to 2016. And the two months combined, the entire state was up 3.5 percent compared to last year. It gives you clearer picture of what happened.

Slot wins for the month was $581.7 million, a decline of 4.6 percent, which according to Lawson can be attributed to the extra day last February. Table game wins were down 4.3 percent to $363.9 million. This drop was largely driven by baccarat. Revenue from baccarat tables were down by 19.3 percent to $98.4 million. Craps also saw a poor performance, declining by 20.3 percent to reach $35.6 million.

Sportsbooks was another segment with disappointing results, with total revenue down by around 26 percent over the same period last year to reach $20.7 million. Lawson however emphasized that in the long term the trends were positive for the gaming market.