Nevada casinos finish strong, Churchill suffers decline

Nevada casinos finished the fiscal year with a strong 14.4 percent increase in win in June — a total of $906.9 million.

That puts the year’s winnings at $11.2 billion — a 2.9 percent increase over fiscal year 2013 and the fourth consecutive increase. But the total is still about 12 percent below 2007 — Nevada gaming’s peak year.

Statewide, the story was Baccarat, which increased 18.3 percent to $1.7 billion of that total — a record for the game. That follows Baccarat’s 13.6 percent increase last year.

Without Baccarat, the state still would have been up this fiscal year, but only by six-tenths of a percent.

Baccarat now makes up 15 percent of total gaming win in the state and nearly 38 percent of Game and Table win.

Churchill County casinos, though, were down for the fiscal year, but only by 0.74 percent. Total win for the county’s 10 non-restricted locations was $20.6 million. Game and Table play was up almost 17 percent but accounted for just $713,000 of the total.

In June, Churchill casinos raked in $1.58 million, a 3.8 percent decrease from the previous June.

Slot win accounted for $6.7 billion of the win, a half percent decrease from last year. Slots generated 60 percent of total win, their lowest level since 1991.

The total amount wagered in Nevada this past fiscal year was $138.4 billion. That is well below the record $170 billion wagered in 2007.

The Carson Valley reporting area, which includes valley portions of Douglas County, was down 1.1 percent for the year to $96.7 million, its third consecutive decrease and more than 22 percent below the 2006 peak of $124.7 million. Carson finished the year with a negative 5.5 percent in June, a drop of $463,000. In fact, the area only recorded one monthly increase during the year.

But Carson Valley’s three properties that take bets on horse races had a strong month, reporting a 124.6 percent increase over June 2013, almost certainly because of betting on California Chrome. California Chrome is co-owned by Topaz Lake’s Steve Coburn.

Total win in that category was more than $72,000.

South Shore casinos at Lake Tahoe were down 3.3 percent for the year, reporting $204.4 million in total win, and 2.3 percent for June, $12.2 million. Total win is now down more than 40 percent from south shore’s 2004 peak. Game and Table win fell 12.8 percent even though the amount wagered was up 15 percent.

For June, South Shore casinos actually lost money on “21” and Baccarat (which is reported as “other games”). Other games lost $591,000 and “21” lost $41,000, far too much for an 18 percent increase in slot win to offset. Overall, the area was down $288,000 in June.

North Shore was also down — 5.1 percent for the year to $25.5 million and 15.4 percent in June to $2.1 million. The story there was a 10 percent decrease in volume of play.

The Strip was up 5.2 percent for the year to $6.6 billion. The Strip now accounts for 58 percent of Nevada casinos’ total win, a record. In June, the Strip was up a whopping 22.5 percent to $532.4 million.

Washoe County was up a half percent for the year to $744.9 million but down a bit in June — 2.9 percent to $63.8 million.