Nevada casino gambling bounced back from its July slide to record an 11% year-on-year revenue rise to $955.3m in August, according to figures released by the Nevada Gaming Control Board. Casinos on the Las Vegas Strip fared even better, with revenue up 20% to $589m. In keeping with recent trends, baccarat variance got most of the credit for August’s resurgence, just as it got most of the blame for July’s swoon. Despite baccarat handle actually falling slightly year-on-year, August’s baccarat revenue came in at $193.6m, up 55.6% over August 2012, thanks to a stellar 18.85% hold.
For perspective, July 2013’s baccarat hold was a mere 11.4%, while July 2012 – the fourth-highest revenue month in Nevada’s history – enjoyed a 16% hold, so August was seriously not a lucky month for visiting Asian baccarat whales. For even more perspective on the increasing Asian influence on Las Vegas, consider that Nevada’s baccarat revenue in August 2004 was a mere $27m, while baccarat handle was $205m compared to August 2013’s $1.03b.
Nevada’s overall table game revenue in August 2013 was up nearly 36% to $418m, and even stripping out baccarat, table game revenue increased 21.5%. Blackjack couldn’t compete with baccarat, but its $92.4m take was up 26.3% year-on-year. The rest of the table tallies looked like this: craps ($33.2m, +23%), roulette ($30.8m, +16%), three-card poker ($12.7m, +4%), pai gow poker ($8.8m, +5%), mini-baccarat ($8.4m, +55%), let it ride ($3.1m, -11%) and keno ($2.4m, -6.5%). Poker revenue was up 5% to $9.5m, but we still won’t know how much of that is due to Nevada’s online poker market until there are at least three Nevada-facing sites up and running.
Slots revenue fell 2.7% to $527m in August , while slots handle was basically flat at $8.74b. Nevada’s race books were up 6.6% to $4.8m, while sportsbooks enjoyed the return of pigskin prognosticating by basically doubling overall sports revenue to $14.3m. Football win rose 41% to $9.5m thanks to a 20% hold, while baseball rose 240% to $5.2m on a more modest 4.3% hold. Parlay cards added $606k while basketball trimmed nearly $700k off the total win as laggard fans finally got around to cashing winning tickets.
