October Nevada gaming win up everywhere except Clark County

Gaming win has recovered from the pandemic everywhere except where it counts most — Clark County.

Total win in October was $822.7 million. That is a 19.5 percent, $199 million decrease from October 2019. The only reporting areas in the red are all in the south including the Las Vegas Strip where win was down 30.2 percent to $375.7 million. That, however, is improvement over September when the Strip was down 39 percent. Even so, the Strip accounted for 82 percent of this month’s decrease. But downtown, North Las Vegas, Laughlin and the Boulder Strip were also still down double digits.

Across the rest of the state, October this year was actually up compared the same month a year ago.

Gaming Control Board Analyst Mike Lawton said those markets were all up because of two factors. This October had two more weekend days than a year ago and all those northern and western markets rely on drive-in and local play.

“The recovery is going to be uneven between markets that rely on local play vs. markets that rely more on destination air travel,” he said.

Even Washoe County gets much more of its gaming play from drive-in and local customers. Washoe was up 6.1 percent in October to $78.1 million.

The Carson Valley area, which includes valley portions of Douglas County as well as the capital, reported just over $10 million in win, a 1.9 percent increase over the prior October. The vast majority of that win comes from slots. That is the third consecutive increase for Carson.

Both Lake Tahoe markets were up double digits in October. South Shore casinos at Stateline won $21.6 million, a 10.8 percent increase compared to a year ago. Game and Table win jumped up 23.4 percent, $1.1 million, and slot win 6.8 percent.

North Shore casinos at Crystal Bay reported a 21.9 percent increase to $2.3 million. In large part that was because this October was compared to a 17.1 percent decrease in the same month of 2019.

Churchill County reported $1.83 million in total win. That is 5.8 percent more than the same month last year.

Sports pools won $42.4 million. While that is down 11.5 percent compared to last October, the total best on sports set a record at $659.6 million.