Nevada Hits Eighth Month Of More Than $1 Billion In Gambling Revenue
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Gamblers keep losing and Nevada keeps winning. The Silver State collected $1.2 billion in gambling revenues from casinos in October, marking the eighth consecutive month the state has brought in more than $1 billion, according to numbers released by the Nevada Gaming Control Board.
October’s total win is up 19.5% from pre-pandemic levels during the same month in 2019.
The eight-month rally is tied with the state’s record for the longest streak of $1 billion-plus collected from casinos in one month. The last time Nevada reported an eight-month streak was between October 2006 and May 2007, just before the Great Recession tore through the economy.
“The recovery has been in full-swing eight months in a row, and we’ll probably set an all-time calendar year record,” says Michael Lawton, a senior research analyst for the Nevada Gaming Control Board. “Nothing has changed.”
Sin City’s continued recovery is still in full swing. The state collected $702.2 million from casinoson The Las Vegas Strip in October, the second highest of all time and a 30.4% increase over October 2019. Current year to date, revenues from Strip casinos are up 3.5% over 2019, a sign that Vegas has recovered from the pandemic-induced recession.
Revenue from table games hit $333.9 million in October, $100 million more compared with October 2019, or a 43% increase. Slots brought in $368.2 million, a 20.7% increase from October 2019.
Downtown Las Vegas, which is home to the year-old Circa and billionaire Tilman Fertitta’s Golden Nugget, saw revenues jump 20.34% from January through October compared with the same time before Covid-19.
Clark County, which includes The Strip, Downtown, Henderson and other areas, brought in $1 billion out of the state’s total $1.2 billion. October marked the fifth month out of the last six months that Clark County brought in $1 billion. The only other month in the state’s history that Clark County recorded $1 billion in gambling revenue prior to this five-month rally was October 2007.
When asked if he thinks Nevada can beat the eight-month record, Lawton is positive.
“I never expected eight months in a row, but there's nothing we’re hearing that's going to change the trajectory and the activity on the gaming floor,” says Lawton.
The Vegas recovery is driven by domestic gamblers. There is still room to grow as the convention schedule is still down compared to 2019 and international travel is soft.
Sports bettors wagered a record $728.6 million on football, beating the last wager record of $502 million set in November 2020. But the gamblers gave the sportsbooks a beating in October as the state only collected $29.8 million off three-quarters of a billion dollars in wagers. Sports pools brought in $48.3 million off a state record drop of $1.1 billion, a 102.3% increase in drop over October 2019. Mobile sports wagering brought in $16.9 million in revenue from $704.2 million in wagers, another disappointing hold for sportsbooks.
Events helped draw tourists to Nevada in October. There were five weekends during the month and a slate of events that drew millions of visitors to Sin City, including the auto convention SEMA Show and Sting, Lady Gaga and Gwen Stefani resumed their residencies. The Rolling Stones played at Allegiant Stadium and the Las Vegas Raiders played several home games. The 52nd annual World Series of Poker came back to town for the first time since 2019 at the Rio and the Electric Daisy Carnival brought nearly half a million people over a three-day concert.
Brendan Bussmann,partner and director of government affairs with Global Market Advisors, who covers the gaming industry, is also hopeful that the recovery will last but is nervous about the omicron variant.
“Let's see if we can keep this trend going,” says Bussmann. “I don't know if it'll sustain, but I think we'll continually see record numbers in the short term—you're still seeing great volume coming in and out of the city.”
Bussmann says that November is likely to report strong numbers as there was an 18-mile back up on Interstate 15 leaving Vegas towards Southern California on the last Saturday of November, a sign that domestic drive-in travel is still strong. The eight-month rally, to him, has shown that gambling has become even more “mainstream.” But the end of the year could be soft. “[Long term] is contingent over how this new variant may or may not impact travel,” says Bussmann.
Visitation is improving compared to last year, but the number of tourists into Las Vegas is still below pre-pandemic numbers. According to a report by the Las Vegas Visitor and Convention Authority, visitor volume into Sin City in October was up 82.6% compared with October 2020 but still down 7.6% compared with October 2019. To put that into context, the number of visitors in October 2020 compared to pre-pandemic numbers was down 49%.
Colin Mansfield, an analyst from Fitch Ratings, says that Las Vegas and the U.S. regional gambling markets are in great shape, especially compared with Macau, which used to be world’s most lucrative gambling hub.
“Las Vegas has snapped back a lot faster than Macau and other gaming jurisdictions that rely on international visitation,” says Mansfield.
According to a report Mansfield recently published, Las Vegas gaming revenues are still above 2019 thanks to strong domestic travel and “impressive slot and non-baccarat table performance, albeit with lower visitation.” Fitch Ratings predicts that 2022 will be another growth year for Vegas and U.S. regional gambling markets with gross gaming revenue estimated to outpace 2019 levels, despite visitation remaining down by 10% compared with 2019.
Even though Las Vegas Sands is on its way out of Las Vegas, CEO Rob Goldstein, during the company’s third-quarter earnings call, said: “I think the future in Vegas remains, as we voiced, very bright.”
