Nevada casino gaming revenue fell in March as pretty much every vertical except slots and sports betting slid into negative territory.
Total gaming revenue was $951.2m in March, down 3.15% from the same month last year. The loss was far more pronounced on the Las Vegas Strip, which saw revenue fall 9.6% to $507m. Nevada has now posted revenue declines in seven of the last eight months. Numbers for the fiscal year to date, which began in July 2014, are down 2.1% to $8.3b.
The reluctance of China’s VIP gamblers to engage in any indulgence that might attract Beijing’s eagle eye had an alarming effect on Vegas’ baccarat winnings, which fell by one-third to $68.1m. Also contributing to the decrease was baccarat hold, which fell to 8.3%, well below the state’s 12% average. Those two factors allowed blackjack to claim top table game ranking with $98.5m, although this was down 7% year-on-year.
Virtually all table games were in negative territory for the month, including craps ($38.7m, -8%), roulette ($24.9m, -18.7%), three-card poker ($13.7m, -10.1%), pai gow poker ($9.2m, -4.8%), mini-baccarat ($6.1m, -42.4%) and pai gow ($1.1m, -43.4%). The only monthly gainers were let it ride ($3.8m, +0.3%), keno ($2.5m, +8.9%) and bingo ($1.9m, +51.6%). Poker revenue – which includes an unknown contribution from the state’s two remaining online poker licensees – fell 6.5% to $9.7m.
By contrast, slot machine revenue rose 3.5% to $635.4m and sportsbook revenue was up 44% to $18.5m. The NCAA March Madness basketball tournament helped boost roundball revenue by 44% to $27.9m on a 7.4% hold. The overall numbers would have been much higher were it not for laggard football bettors cashing in $11.6m worth of winners in March. Baseball wagers contributed a mere $245k (-75%), sports parlay cards added another $457k (-8.2%), while all other sports combined brought in $1.5m (-20.1%). The state’s race books were off 6.5% to $4.7m
