Nevada casino gaming revenue took a slight dip in July, snapping a five-month winning streak.
Figures published Thursday by the Nevada Gaming Control Board show the state’s casinos generated gaming revenue of $996.4m in July, an improvement on June’s $933m but a 0.16% decline from the same month last year. The decline was blamed on the Las Vegas Strip, where gaming revenue slipped 5.7% to $565.6m.
Slot machines did their bit to keep July in the black, with revenue up 5.6% to $667.8m. But the GCB’s new category of ‘table, counter and card games’ was off 10.2% to $328.6m, with nearly uniform declines in all table game totals.
Baccarat revenue was an impressive $101m but this was down 16.4% year-on-year despite a 13% win rate. Blackjack was down 6.6% to $93.4m and craps slid 13.3% to $35.1m. Roulette was the outlier, reporting revenue up 1.6% to $32.8m.
The state’s sportsbooks reported their 60th consecutive month of beating the customer, with revenue up a staggering 674% to just under $4.1m. It’s worth noting that July 2017’s $524k result was the books’ lowest monthly profit since July 2014, thanks to a woeful win rate of 0.24%.
Baseball was berry berry good to the books in July, as revenue rose 123% to nearly $3.8m. But the books took a bath on basketball, as lazy bettors finally got around to cashing nearly $3.2m worth of winning tickets.
Reflecting the second half of the 2018 FIFA World Cup, revenue from ‘other’ sports improved 38.6% to $2.9m, while American football revenue was down one-third to $418k. Parlay cards nearly tripled to $107k and the state’s lone pari-mutuel fantasy operator generated a whopping $1,000 during the month. The state’s race books were down 13.6% to $3.15m.
The seven Nevada race- and sportsbooks that utilize the services of CG Technology are facing an uncertain future as the company could see its license revoked at the next meeting of the Nevada Gaming Commission due to CGT’s ongoing failure to uphold regulatory standards.
