Nevada’s gaming win down; Carson up 8 percent

Facing a difficult comparison from the same month a year ago, Nevada’s gaming win decreased 1.7 percent in July to $997.9 million.

But the Carson Valley Area, which includes valley portions of Douglas County as well as the capital, reported an 8 percent increase to $9.53 million. That’s the largest percentage increase in the Carson reporting area since October 2015 when overall win was up 8.6 percent.

The problem statewide was simply Baccarat play on the Las Vegas Strip which was down nearly 20 percent compared to July 2016.

“Except for the Strip, it was a good month,“ said Gaming Control Board Analyst Mike Lawton noting Strip win fell 7.7 percent.

He said Baccarat was up more than 44 percent a year ago, leaving this July’s win facing a difficult comparison.

In Carson City, the story was table games — normally just a small percentage of total win in the Carson Valley. This July, that category increased 44.6 percent or $210,000 driven by a major increase in total blackjack play.

Other than the Las Vegas Strip, the only reporting area down in July was South Shore at Lake Tahoe. Total win of $23.9 million by Stateline casinos was down 14.8 percent or $4.1 million for the month. Again, those casinos were facing a difficult comparison since total win was up 20 percent in July 2016. The culprit was table games where total win fell 22.2 percent.

This ends a streak of three consecutive increases for South Shore, according to Lawton. But he pointed out that win is still up 2 percent over the seven months of this calendar year.

North Shore casinos at Lake Tahoe won $3.4 million in July, a 3.6 percent increase or $121,000. The area is still down 6.2 percent for the calendar year.

In Washoe County, Lawton said win totaled $77.9 million for the month, a 2.3 percent increase or $1.7 million. He said while Washoe is still down a half percent for the calendar year, the area has now recorded three consecutive monthly increases. Driving that, he said, was some of the best visitation numbers in more than a decade. Lawton said the Reno Sparks Convention and Visitors Authority reports 515,000 tourists came to the Reno area in July, an 8.3 percent increase and the highest total visitation in a dozen years or more.

Churchill County’s gaming win was up 6.39 percent in July. The dollar total was $1,782,000 from 10 non-restricted gaming locations.

Of that total, a hair more than $1.7 million came from slow play. Just three of those Churchill locations offer table game and sports pool play. Together, they won just more than $67,000 in July.