Nevada casino gaming revenue declined for the first time in six months in August, which also saw the state’s regulated online poker market report its smallest revenue tally since regulators began reporting figures in February. Figures released Friday by the Nevada Gaming Control Board show gaming revenue fell 3.7% to $920.2m in August, while action on the Las Vegas Strip fell 6.1% to $553.2m.
As ever, most of the blame can be laid at baccarat’s door, as the vertical’s revenue fell 12.4% to $169.6m. The comparison is a bit misleading, as August 2013’s baccarat revenue was up 55% over the previous year thanks to a 19% hold. August 2014’s baccarat hold was a still healthy but more mortal 16%. Mini-baccarat fared much worse, recording a $4m loss for the month as win rate fell to -3.3%.
By comparison, blackjack had a very good month, rising 11.4% to $103m, while craps fell 5% to $31.4m, narrowly beating roulette’s $31m, which was basically flat. The rest of the table games reported as follows: three-card poker ($12.2m, -3.7%), pai gow poker ($9.7m, +11%), let it ride ($3.2m, +0.5%), keno ($2.5m, +3%), pai gow ($1m, -48%) and bingo brought up the rear with a whopping $62k (-76%). Slots revenue was down less than 1% to $522.7m.
Brick-and-mortar poker revenue fell 4.6% to $9m, while the state’s three licensed online poker rooms reported just $742k, down from $958k in July and even further off the $1.04m peak recorded in June, which benefited from the influx of players attending the World Series of Poker.
Nevada sportsbooks saw revenue tumble 20.3% to $11.4m, despite setting an all-time betting handle record for the month of August. The books kept a healthy 17.4% of all football wagers, but that was down from an even better 20% last August, which limited football revenue to a modest 5.2% gain to $10m. Baseball revenue fell 36% to $3.3m as hold fell to 2.8% from 4.3% last August. ‘Other’ sports recorded a $1.6m loss, while laggard basketball bettors cashing in winning tickets resulted in a $938k loss. Parlay cards were flat at $613k and Nevada’s pari-mutuel racing fell 5.9% to $4.5m.
