Every month, casinos across the US report their revenue earnings. The goal each of course is to see an increase in earnings. Unfortunately for Nevada, casino gaming revenues have been down month after month since the year began. Thankfully, June saw a turnaround and the state was able to finally see an increase in their monthly earnings.
Record Earnings
In June, the gaming revenue total statewide came in at $1.04 billion. This was an all-time record amount for the state, pushed by baccarat. For the game of baccarat, players flocked to the tables, producing the highest hold percentage in a fifteen year time frame.
Earlier this week, the Gaming Control Board announced that the revenues for the month were just over 11% more than one year ago. While the monthly change is good, the yearly totals are still low. From January to May, gaming revenues were at a decline so the turnaround in June only helped the state to get to 0.2% below the total from 2018.
Breaking down the totals based on region, the Las Vegas Strip was able to account for close to 60% of the overall figure. They saw an increase for June of 17.7% with just over $616 million in earnings. This was a good turnaround for the strip as revenues had been on a monthly decline since December.
Helping the Strip see good results was the game of baccarat. Revenues from the game helped to push the overall results for the region as well as the state into the higher numbers. Baccarat was up a whopping 114.3% with $157.9 million in revenues. Wagering came in at just over $762 million.
Slot gaming also helped to increase the revenue numbers for June. Slots were up just over 7% with just over $634 million in earnings.
All areas of the Southern region of the state reported a strong month. The Downtown region saw revenues increase by 18.6% with the North section up by 13%. The Boulder Strip reached almost 10% with their revenue increases while Clark County saw a much smaller 3% uptick in revenues.
On the downside, the northern portion of the state did not fare so well. In Reno, gaming revenues were down by 14%. South Lake Tahoe dipped a little bit less at 12% with Washoe County down 10%. The North Lake Tahoe casinos were down just 4%.
Tourism Jump
Helping the state see higher revenues was a nice increase in tourism numbers for Las Vegas. For June, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority reported that over 3.6 million people visited the region. This was an increase of around 1.2% when compared to June 2018.
Convention attendees are a large percentage of the tourism travel numbers reported in Las Vegas. For June, the city played host to 514,000 individuals traveling to the region for a convention and this was almost a 3% increase from the same month last year.
As far as hotel stays were concerned, average occupancy for Las Vegas hotels came in at 91.7%. The average cost of a room in the region was at just over $120 a night.
With a positive month in June, gaming regulators as well as operators in Nevada and hoping that the trend continues. With five months of negative numbers, it is nice to finally see an improvement. Hopefully the coming months prove to be successful for the region and the revenue numbers stay in the positive.
