Nevada Casinos Post 11.5% Revenue Increase For August 2010

The state of Nevada received some much needed news on Friday after the Gaming Control Board released their figures showing a 11.5% rise in casino revenue for the month of August.
Nevada had been experiencing a steady decline in its revenue since Macau took over the mantle of ‘World’s biggest gambling resort’ in 2007. Since then Nevada has only reported a monthly increase in year on year results in November 2009 (4.4%) and February 2010 (13%) but now August’s results add hope that a recovery might be closer than previously thought.
The 11.5% rise in gambling revenue for August to $944 million was greeted with much enthusiasm by both state officials and residents alike, with local business women Maryann Levitt commenting:
“It has been a long, tough road over the past couple of years, and the casinos have suffered greatly. I have friends that lost their jobs because of the slow down at the casino. Hopefully now the casinos will again start hiring some of the people they laid off.”
In Nevada the Las Vegas Strip accounts for almost half of all state casino revenue and despite the optimistic figures for August the strip helped to significantly prop up the overall figures with a 21% leap in its revenue to $544.4 million.
The rest of the state’s results were a lot less impressive with either small gains or losses being reported.
Carson Valley region was up 7.7%, South Lake Tahoe was up 7.2% to $23.5 million, and Clark County was up by 1.4%. Meanwhile, revenue for Downtown Las Vegas was down 1.4% to $41.4 million, northern Nevada’s Washoe County was down 3.1% to $71.6 million, and Elko County fell by 1.9%.
Nevada relies heavily on revenue from gambling whose taxes provide over 30% of the state’s budget. As a result of August’s overall positive results, $61.8 million in taxes was collected statewide representing a 24.4% increase compared to the August 2009 figure of $49.6 million.