- Nevada generates good profits from sports betting and gaming
- New Jersey pulls ahead of the Silver State
- Tourism in Nevada improves slightly in August
The state of Nevada fell behind New Jersey in terms of total sports handle and gaming revenue in August 2019.
Nevada Sports Betting Handle Falls Behind New Jersey
Nevada, a long-time leader in sports betting and casino gaming, has fallen behind New Jersey in terms of total sports handle in August. The state took in additional 22.1% in sports wagers, amounting to $287.8 million overall, but that wasn’t enough to compete with the activity down in New Jersey. Meanwhile, online casino revenue dropped down to $952.4 million from $1 billion before.
The gaming revenue constituted the lowest Nevada had generated since April, although it led to a 4.3% year-over-year increase. A total of $11.78 billion was placed in wagers. New Jersey led the way in August with sports handle hitting $293.6 million, or $18.7 million more than Nevada.
Excitement around college football and the National Football League (NFL) generated a significant interest and a significant uptick in activities, boosting year-over-year results by 110%. Overall $72.3 million was wagered.
New Jersey also generated decent results from football betting, posting some $12.7 million as opposed to $6.7 million in revenue from baseball.
Casino Revenue in Nevada Declines
As to casino revenue, numbers in Nevada were also down. Penny slots and the overall revenue was at their lowest since February. The segments generated $273.8 million and $615.5 million respectively. Interestingly enough, however, the overall YOY return on penny slots jumped by 31.5%. Similarly, slots in total generated 26.3% more than the previous year.
Slots kept bringing the largest revenue for the state, with the penny slots generating $246.4 million and slots in general reaping $5.08 billion. The total amount wagered on slots reached $9.56 billion, a significant overall number.
Revenue from table games and sports raked in around $337 million with the total handle hitting $2.22 billion. This sum alone was estimated to be a 13.6% YOY increase. Clark County led the way in terms of income, with the Las Vegas-home area generated an income of $791.6 million overall. The Las Vegas Strip bagged some $520.7 million out of $5.02 billion wagered. Once again, that was an overall increase in operations with 9% and 5% up YOY respectively.
Touristic metrics were also very positive, with Las Vegas in particularly posting increases in several key metrics, such as room occupancy, convention attendance, and air passengers. All of these metrics increased between 1% and 4% on average.
Overall, however, the Gaming Control Board reported on Thursday that the state collected $912.9 million in pre-tax gaming revenue for the month, or a 7.74% decline year-over-year. With a mixed bag of results, Credit Suisse gaming analyst Cameron McKnight has warned that many of his colleagues expected Las Vegas and Nevada to post much poorer results.