Nevada casinos reported their seventh straight month of annual revenue declines in September, with bingo and horseracing the only gaming verticals to post positive growth.
Figures released Wednesday by the Nevada Gaming Control Board show statewide gambling revenue of $821.1m in September, a 22.4% decline from the same month last year. However, September’s total was nearly $82m better than August 2020 and the state’s best showing since casinos reopened in June following their COVID-19 shutdown.
The pain was much greater on the Las Vegas Strip, where casinos reported gaming revenue falling 39.1% to $354.7m, although that was up $38m from August. The situation wasn’t much better Downtown ($51.8m, -21.5%) while the Boulder Strip gained 1.8% to $75.9m and Reno rose 3% to $57.1m.
Statewide slots revenue was off 12% to $607.5m while the ‘table, counter & card games’ segment slumped 41.9% to $213.6m. With the exception of bingo ($2m, +27.5%), all individual games were sharply negative, led by blackjack ($64.6m, -21.7%), craps ($32.8m, -13.3%) and roulette ($22.5m, -20.3%), while baccarat tumbled 86.6% to just under $14.2m despite baccarat volume dropping only 11.5%.
Nevada’s sportsbooks brought in $32.9m, down nearly 37% year-on-year and marking one of Nevada’s poorer showings to the start of another NFL season. Betting handle totaled $575.2m, up slightly from last September’s $546.3m, but well below New Jersey’s record $748.6m handle last month.
September’s football betting revenue was down nearly-three quarters to $10.7m, while basketball plunged over 500% to just $3.7m and parlay cards were off 61% to $2.1m.
Thank God for baseball ($10.2m, +33.6%), hockey ($5.1m, but there’s no direct comparison with September 2019), ‘other’ sports ($1.1m, +29.4%) and the state’s pari-mutuel race books, which gained 22.7% to $3.25m.
