Facebook
Fark
Digg
Reddit
StumbleStrip gaming revenue falls for 19th month
Nevada casinos take in 12.5 percent less in July
Published Thursday, Sept. 10, 2009 | 8:20 a.m.
Updated Thursday, Sept. 10, 2009 | 10:38 a.m.
CARSON CITY – Gaming revenue on the Strip fell by 11.1 percent in July, continuing a 19-month stretch of declines in the resort corridor that accounts for more than 50 percent of the state’s gaming business.
The Gaming Control Board reported that statewide gaming win, computed before business expenses and taxes, dropped to $872.6 million in July, down 12.4 percent.
Strip casinos won $461.3 million during the month, the smallest monthly win for a July since 2004. The 11.1 percent drop comes top of a double-digit drop of 14.6 percent in July 2008.
“There’s been a double-digit decline in spending by locals and tourists coming into the casinos,” says Frank Streshley, chief of tax and licensing for the state Gaming Control Board.
Bill Bible, president of the Nevada Resort Association in Las Vegas, said “People are struggling economically and holding on to the dollars they have.”
Bible said he doesn’t expect much improvement in August, “maybe a little worse.”
Without a good month in baccarat, which was up 26.5 percent statewide, the state’s gross win would have been down 14 percent, Streshley said.
He said there were no special events such as big concerts or major fights on the Strip in July.
The only place in Clark County to show an increase in gaming was North Las Vegas, where the win grew by 7.4 percent to $23.6 million, mostly due to the addition of the Alliante casino during this fiscal year.
The board reported the win in downtown Las Vegas casinos declined 11.4 percent to $39.8 million; Laughlin was off 18.5 percent at $39.2 million; the Boulder Strip was down 6.8 percent to $65.7 million; Mesquite fell 19.5 percent to $8.4 million and the balance of casinos in Clark County dropped 11.8 percent to $91.7 million.
Streshley also says he doesn’t see much upturn in the gaming picture until 2010.
The report reflects there was high end play in baccarat on the Strip in July with the win up 27.5 percent, Bible said. But he said the slot machine play, “the bread and butter” of the industry, fell 17.5 percent.
There was even a decline in the win in the penny machines, down 4 percent from a year ago. There had been strong growth in this area in past months. Streshley said many casinos took out nickel and quarter machines and replaced them with penny slots.
The tax collected from the gaming casinos for the last two months totaled $102.9 million, down 7.2 percent. The Economic Forum predicted a growth this year of about 4 percent. Streshley said, however, he thinks there will be some rebound in the second half of this fiscal year.
The board reported gross win from the 21 games on the Strip fell 25.9 percent; craps rose 3.6 percent; roulette was up 37.1 percent; Baccarat jumped 27.5 percent; the sports pool increased 32 percent but that came on a 226 percent drop in July 2008.
Statewide, Streshley said the sports books lost $636,000 due mostly to paying off future bets made at the beginning of the season on the outcome of the National Basketball Association.
Gaming in Washoe County fell for the 25th straight month, down 19.5 percent; South Lake Tahoe was off 33.1 percent to $27.2 million; Elko County declined 8.5 percent to $22.1 million and the Carson Valley area was down 7.1 percent to $9.2 million.
Discussion: comments so far…
Comments are moderated by Las Vegas Sun editors. Our goal is not to limit the discussion, but rather to elevate it. Comments should be relevant and contain no abusive language. Comments that are off-topic, vulgar, profane or include personal attacks will be removed. Full comments policy. Additionally, we now display comments from trusted commenters by default. Those wishing to become a trusted commenter need to verify their identity or sign in with Facebook Connect to tie their Facebook account to their Las Vegas Sun account. For more on this change, read our story about how it works and why we did it.
Only trusted comments are displayed on this page. Untrusted comments have expired from this story.
No trusted comments have been posted.
Post a comment
Most Popular
- Viewed
- Discussed
- E-mailed
- UNLV can move forward without the burden of losing streak to San Diego State
- A wife’s wisdom shows birth control issue needn’t be divisive
- Surprise links, negotiated deals addressed by commissioners
- UNLV makes key plays down stretch to hold off San Diego State 65-63
- Motorcycle accident claims life of man in northeast valley
- Hope and change and … what’s missing?
- New York mayor has the right idea
- We don’t need a CEO in charge
- Paying our own way
- Country has ‘given’ citizens a lot
Blogs
The Kats Report
Color from scene at Thomas & Mack: We have a wire job! Rebels win, and Louie Armstrong sings!
South Point owner Michael Gaughan's take on 'Vegas Stripped': 'I'll give it an 8' (4 Comments)
Author relishes writing the life story of ‘larger-than-life’ Oscar Goodman (3 Comments)
Elsewhere
Landowner: All roads could lead to Uxbridge casino
Revel reveals smoke-free casino opening
Cirque du Soleil show in Sands China casino to close this month
Meet the woman behind Sheldon Adelson
The Sun
Locally owned and independent for more than 50 years.
hey id luv it if my business won $873million
sounds better than I thought it would be.....cheap hotel rooms, good buffet and more promotions could do the job :)))) Please bring back more full pay videopoker progressives to the Strip. Thank You :)
Imagine state workers had better get ready for two more days a month off.
The gov. would rather stick it to working folks than put a windfall tax on gold production in Nevada, which would bring in millions.
Let`s see gold production costs are roughly $250.00 an ounce. Gold is selling for $1000.00 an ounce. Production is about 7,000,000 ounces a year.
Simply put a $250. an ounce tax on gold production and the budget problems are solved,with the gold mining companies still making a killing.
Nah the gov`s buddies in Elko would frown on that.
Perhaps he could tax parking garages. He spends a lot of time there.
if you lose 10 - 15% of your revenue month after month, year after year you eventually, at some point on the graph, go out of business.
everybody is looking for some kind of blue sky in this recession so every few weeks the media takes one statistic that is positive and all the "experts"...that are still employed...say "oh! the recession is ending".
it's not.
never fear - citycenter will save us!
The novelty of the penny slots has worn off and as the article states hotels flooded the casino floors with the damn penny machines and removed nickle and quarter machines. I rarely play the slots, but I will never play the penny machines.
Friggin amazin...
The gross win on the "21" games on the Strip fell 25.9%.
Anybody got a clue as to how that happened?
Lower and lower revenue for the clubs mean fewer tax receipts and more layoffs.
The casinos cannot continue to pay people with less and less income.
Where are the green shoots? In San Fransisco? Chicago? Washington D.C.? Harry Reid, why aren't there any green shoots in Nevada?
haha!
citycenter.
i love how "experts" point to that as some kind of monolith that is going to turn things around.
PEOPLE AREN'T COMING HERE!
and when they do, they don't spend as much money as they used to.
it's just going to spread around the people that do come here. it's not going to increase the number of people coming here.
there will be no reason to employ all those people they have hired.
"Bill Bible, president of the Nevada Resort Association in Las Vegas, said "People are struggling economically and holding on to the dollars they have."
No kidding!! Baccarat was up but don't a lot of foreigners play that?
NLV was up - machines got tighter at the Cannery.
Guys, that's wins, not profits. Wins are just one source of incoming revenue (added to rooms, resturants and clubs, shows, other paid amenities, etc.) that is offset by expenses (use your imagination).
The casinos are not doing well right now.
Keep the slots tight and nobody is going to make a trip out. How long is it going to take the Casinos to understand that tight slots are keeping players away. There are so many casinos now around the county who wants to pay the money to come out to Vegas and not have any fun playing.
muddapucker - I think you know the answer. The BS that Harrahs properties have done with 6:5 blackjack has tarnished blackjack for the entire city. People I talk with say they will now play blackjack at the Indian Casinos instead of coming to Vegas. Granted, many properties don't do this kind of thing but word of the bad actions from the two monopolies spreads throughout the country. Soon, everybody in Nevada will be paying taxes because of some of these bad decisions. I'm thinking that the folks running the games think maybe they could make more money by paying blackjack even, adding a triple zero to the roulette wheel and changing the "yo" to a "craps." People know the house take on slots has gone up. What is happening is kind of like if the guys at Ford decided to sell the taurus for $100K versus $25K to make more money. As long as the management gets paid megabucks they don't really care about the long-term consequences of their actions.
People want value, there is none in vegas anymore. You get squeezed for every dollar flying here (extra for luggage, pillow etc), you get squeezed for every dollar once you get here(tight as hell slots) and finally squeezed dry on the flight back home (paying for the extra luggage for the stuff you bought while here). If I didn't live here I wouldn't come here.
The writing is on the wall.
What are we going to do?
They're not coming back in droves, and those that do aren't spending like Watanabe.
I think we're screwed. We might have to get real jobs where we actually contribute to society instead of just taking the money.
Hmmmm...
Visitors drop 1.3% but gaming fell 11.1% during the same period.
Somebody doesn't see much value in the games...
Never played any of those "penny" video machines. Keep the 3 reel, single line slots in the normal denominations and those of us old timers might be more inclined to pull the lever (push the button) more often. All of the complex video machines which require in some cases hundreds of credits for max. bet are just too complicated for those of us over 25. Then again, I just hate losing, so I limit my gambling anyway. Gotta have some winners to keep the dream alive so those who gamble a lot will keep coming back. August numbers should be up, I left 30 bucks on the strip in august!
this just in: " casino revenues fell for the 20th straight month in august". with the christmas holidays around the corner ma and pa will stay closer to the home fires while the screws get tightened even tighter.
1. Recall digital slot play and bring back the metal money. There's something special about a repeating clunk-clunk-clunk in a payout.
2. Recall 6:5 blackjack, diversify the pit to include single-deck, surrender options and 3-deck in addition to 6-deck and put continuous shuffling to rest.
3. Intentionally pay a series of "spotlight" jackpots each month. A few in the five-figure range, a few in the six figures, and one every 90 days for seven figures. Publicize, publicize these jackpots.
4. Reduce slot hold percentage to 1-3% / 97-99% payback.
5. Mega slot tournament each December and July. 7 figures for first! Give players something to shoot for!
6. Institute "Chuck E. Cheese" style prize opportunities for gamers; only make the prizes adult-oriented and interesting, extraordinary. Mountain bikes, paintball guns, jet skis, Oakleys, NFL jerseys, vacation packages. .. . All attainable through player participation/ gaming points. In other words, real comps.
7. Open the flood gates. All rooms 100% free for all players period, until a recovery occurs.
8. Subsidize WSOP entry fee for all players paying cash: 4500 to get in, prizes proportioned to represent the 10,000 USD buy-in. In effect a house-added tourney prize pool.
ScottsdaleSun13, your ideas sounds like a casino wonderland. It could perhaps work out if the people would gamble then, too. However, such a proposal would attract thousands of rats just chasing the freebies and the free room offers and more, I am not sure if the casino would be able to remain in business for long. I am 100 per cent with you on the 6:5 b-j scam, the continous shuffle stuff and the tight slotmachines. These things could be changed. And the room rates could be low, and REMAIN low, but then it's still not sure whether enough people have already enough cash to go gamble with. The economy needs to pull up, people need to get jobs to have money to spend. Also, the people with maximum credit card debt need to pay back a big part of their debt load to get their head above water again. That's the basics, and once this is done we can talk about leisure. But I like your ideas, it would definetely be the No 1 spot in Vegas :)
From Switzerland
I used to love to play slots and to go to Vegas every year or 2 but with the way things are now even though somehow i still have my job of 26 yrs,(for how long who knows), the thought of flushing money down a slot machine now makes me ill just to think about it. Weird how much i have changed. I bet alot of other people have too.
19 months and counting.
How many months will it actually take for these crooked casino owners/workers to start treating and comping people what they used to.
60-80 months of straight declines?
ScottsdaleSun13, BorisR:
You offer solutions to at least turn things around with many great ideas.
Yes, the rats would swoop in to collect - but with the card system, casinos have all the data about us - they know who's been regular or not. If anyone of them devoted careful study and analyzing the data they have on us, they could even "taylor-make" individual marketing strategies for all of our demopraphics (age, location of home, income level, amount of playing, etc).
The problem stems from them (the casinos) trying to figure out us, the "marks" and how to keep us coming back for more.
I don't appreciate pulling the nickel and quarter slots, and replacing with the penny concept. They got that totally wrong - why you ask? Because they don't have a clue.
Casinos need to listen to their customers. They spend more time and their own money when all they have to do is ask us!
The other hard lesson they're learning: Get Greedy and You'll Wind Up With Nothing.
19 months and counting shows the "higher ups" in management, complete with their college degrees hanging on the wall office, is not the same as if they all took a stroll down on the floor, and even eavesdropped on what people are saying or doing.
We never gamble on the Strip,lousy odds. Downtown has better odds. Better yet, go to an Indian Casino for the best Comps. We get $60.00 at our state casinos per day. Vegas gives the common person nix,high rollers alot.
You better wake up Vegas!!!! You won't be around long. You treat yhe common gambler like crap. Buffets [which now are no bargain],entertainment that a common gambler could care less about, and family programs won't save your butt.
My wife and I dropped $2k in Vegas quarter and penney slots over three days in August to win several jackpots of a $100 or so, plus all the sucker come-on cherry dribble backs. I'm really a sucker for the coin drop machines in one of the NLV clubs. It was great to hear the coins chugging into the pan, but I ended up losing $250 for my own greed of trying to hit something substantial.. Three reel coin machines now are just as tight as their newer, digital descendants.
We left feeling totally beat-up, disillusioned, not wanting to go back to the heat and heartbreak, the pouring of dollar after dollar into heartless, random sucker--breakers.
Maybe if instead of buffet points, we'd earned shares in the casino, we'd have something tangible for our expenditures. But even casino stock would be questionable these days, eh?