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.