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.