By the slightest of margins, Nevada casinos reverted to their losing ways in April as gaming revenue dipped 0.27% year-on-year to $852m. So far this year, only March has seen Nevada gaming joints post an improvement over the corresponding month in 2013. April’s haul is also the smallest this year, around $32m less than January’s total.
Casinos on the Las Vegas Strip saw revenue improve 3.2% to just under $463m, making casinos in the rest of the state responsible for the overall negative numbers. According to the Nevada Gaming Control Board, overall slots win fell 4.7% to $567m in April while total table game revenue rose 10% to $276.4m.
Baccarat regained its status as the number one table game earner, with revenue up 39% to $90.3m thanks to gains in both handle and win rate. March table champ blackjack was up just under 4% to $79.4m, while the rest of the table tallies shook out as follows: craps ($27.5m, +18%), roulette ($23.4m, -20%), three-card poker ($11.7m, -8%), pai gow poker ($7.8m, -5%), mini-baccarat ($4.8m, -30%), let it ride ($3.2m, -17%), keno ($2m, -17%), pai gow ($1.2m, -10%), bingo ($129k, -73%) and other games ($11.9m, +5%).
Poker revenue improved 10% to $8.8m, while Nevada’s three licensed online poker sites reported $792k in revenue in April, down 14.5% from the previous month. Total online poker revenue since Ultimate Poker launched last April comes to $10.2m.
Nevada race books reported $3.6m in revenue, down 3% year-on-year. Total sportsbook revenue shot up 62% to $9.2m, thanks to a whopping 526% gain in basketball earnings. While win rate was a modest 5.3%, roundball revenue hit $5m. Baseball betting brought in most of the rest, despite win falling 30% to $4.5m. Laggard football bettors cashed in $3.6m of winning tickets in April, offsetting other sports’ contribution of $3.4m, which was up 80%.
This week saw the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority release a visitor profile showing the average age of the typical Vegas tourist in 2013 was just under 36 years old, four years younger than the average recorded in 2009. The percentage of tourists who gambled fell to 71% from 83% five years ago. Those who came to gamble reported their wagering budget at just under $530, up from $481 in 2009, but time spent gambling fell from 3.2 hours per day to 2.9 hours over the same period. Just 24% of visitors said they were “more likely” to make the trek to Vegas when they had gambling options close to home, down from 39% in 2009.
