Nevada Casino Up 7.4% To $958m In September

The state Gaming Control Board has released its casino  figures for September revealing a 7.4% increase in revenue to $958.8 million compared to $893 million for the same month last year.
Encouragingly, the latest gaming results builds on August’s results, which saw revenues increase by 11.17% to $955.3 million statewide, and overall Nevada gaming revenues are now higher by 1.4% for the first nine months of 2013, compared to the same period last year.
Nevada is one of the few US states which is currently experiencing an uptick in its gaming revenues, and as Newmark Grubb Knight Frank Director of Gaming Consulting Brent Pirosch, explains: “Nevada, Kansas, and Louisiana are still the only commercial casino states marking gains in 2013 thus far, while other states are looking at either greater declines or reversal of gains from year-to-date 2012.”
Nevertheless, analysts warned against reading too much into Nevada’s September’s results, as the casinos apparently played lucky with  baccarat producing a larger-than-average 15.72% hold of all wagers, compared to 11.35% last year. As Stifel Nicolaus Capital Markets gaming analyst Steven Wieczynski, explains:
“We view the headline as somewhat misleading, given the result was aided by luckier house play. Strip baccarat volumes continue to prove resilient. The positive baccarat volume performance was offset by generally underwhelming slot volumes.”
Breaking September’s figures down, the Strip saw its gaming revenues improve by an impressive 13.4% to $563.1 million, with baccarat generating $115.5 million of that tally, an increase of 49.1% compared with the same month last year. As a whole, Clark County recorded a 8.74% increase in revenues, with downtown casinos reporting a 2% increase in revenues, North Las Vegas casinos up by 14%, Washoe Countydown up by 4%, and South Lake Tahoe up by 23.2%.
Based on September’s revenue, however, the state of Nevada collected 11.5% less gaming taxes at $62.9 million, with tax collections now down by 3.4% for the first four months of the fiscal year.