Gaming win up 6 percent in Carson City area

Nevada’s nonrestricted gaming licensees reported win totaling $886.5 million in April, a 1.2 percent increase over the same month a year ago.

The Carson Valley Area, which includes valley portions of Douglas County, did much better, reporting $8.6 million in win, a 6 percent increase. That’s an increase of $492,000 that was driven by slot win that increased 6.8 percent primarily because of a $3.5 million increase in total play.

Carson Valley is now up 0.8 percent for the calendar year with two consecutive monthly increases after two decreases this calendar year.

Statewide, gaming win is now up 3.9 percent for the calendar year and up 3 percent for the 10 months of this fiscal year. Gaming Control Board Analyst Mike Lawton said for the fiscal year, only one market is down — North Shore at Lake Tahoe — and that market is down just two-thirds of a percent.

He said the calendar is neutral compared to April 2016 with an equal number of weekend days. Easter was in April this year but in March last year. Lawton said the events calendar was stronger last year because of the opening of T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

Game and Table win was down 6.7 percent in April, primarily because of Baccarat which was down 24.5 percent. Lawton said betting volume on Baccarat was actually up 8 percent but the percentage of bets the house kept fell sharply from nearly 18 percent a year ago to 12.4 percent.

Without Baccarat, games would have been up 4.7 percent.

Slot win was up statewide 5.5 percent to $598.7 million. Slot win is now up 4.1 percent for the calendar year. Lawton said that’s the sixth increase in the last eight months in slot volume, a clear indicator regular players are back.

On the Strip, total win fell 3.3 percent in April. But Lawton said the loss was more than made up by local markets in the south. He said more than half the $16 million decrease was made up downtown, which posted a $9.4 million gain.

Washoe County reported $64.2 million, down 3.1 percent or $2.1 million. Washoe is now down 2.1 percent for the calendar year. But, in April, the county was up against a difficult comparison since April 2016 posted a 15.5 percent gain.

North Lake Tahoe was up 11 percent in April to $1.5 million. Table Games win was up 53 percent or $146,000. Lawton said the increase was “other sports” meaning everything except baseball, basketball and football. A year ago, that category was $250,000 in the red. This April, “other sports” won $3,000.

South Shore casinos at Stateline reported $13.3 million in gaming win, a 4.6 percent or $579,000 increase. But south shore was facing an easy comparison since total win was down 12.5 percent last year.

For the calendar year, South Shore is up 1.2 percent. In April, the driver was “21” which raked in $2.5 million, a 44.4 percent increase over a year earlier. A significant share of that was generated by a 10 percent increase in the amount bet on that game.

Churchill County casinos reported a 1.5 percent overall increase to $1.72 million for April. Game and Table win was actually down 6.6 percent but that makes up just a tiny part of Churchill’s overall gaming win — $59,000 in April.

That loss was more than offset by the $1.66 million reported in slot win.

As in most other parts of the state, slot win is increasingly shifting to multi-denomination machines. Those devices accounted for $1,169,000 of the total reported by Churchill’s 10 nonrestricted gaming locations.

The state collected $44.25 million in gaming revenue during May, a quarter of a percent increase compared to May 2016. Lawton said that puts fiscal year collections at just three-hundredths of a percent under what was projected by the Economic Forum. He said if gaming win is up 4.6 percent in June, the final month, they hit those projections for the year.