Nevada Casino Revenue Drops 7.7% One Year Post-Mayweather Fight

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Friday, September 28th, 2018 | Written by Charles Washington

The Silver State’s casino market suffered a 7.7% revenue drop to $913 million in August, compared to the $989.5 million it generated during the same month in 2017. Nevertheless, the decline was anticipated as last August “The Biggest Fight in Combat Sports History” took place between US boxing legend Floyd Mayweather Jr. and the Irish mixed martial artist Conor McGregor. Describing the result as disappointing but not surprising, Senior Gaming Control Board analyst Michael Lawton commented:

“People called it the fight of the century, and it was a pretty big draw and it drove a lot of those gaming numbers for last August. We didn’t have an event this August that was anywhere near replicating something of that magnitude. We knew going in that this was going to be a tough month for us.”

Tax and gaming fee contributions subsequently amounted to $46.8 million in August, down by 7.4% from the $50.42 million collected a year earlier, as well as 1.5% lower than August 2016’s tax collection figure of $47.53 million.

Table Games Tumble

The state’s gambling industry suffered year-on-year declines across all its verticals in August, with slot revenue the least affected after contracting by just 1% to $618.3 million. Table games, on the other hand, saw their earnings tumble by almost one-fifth to $294.7 million from last year. Leading the list of decliners was blackjack which fell by 25.7% to $80.5 million, followed by roulette down 18.5% ($22.2m), craps lower by 14.2% ($26m), and baccarat down 8.7% ($92.7m).

Fewer High Rollers in Town

In August 2017, Las Vegas was abuzz with excitement surrounding the Mayweather Jr versus McGregor fight which took place during the last week of the month. In addition to drawing in huge crowds, Las Vegas Strip casinos also noted a significant increase in the number of high rollers gambling at their tables. One year later, and their subsequent absence was reflected in revenues on the Strip sinking to $477.9 million, representing a 12.4% year-on-year loss.

While slot machine revenue experienced a 1.3% revenue drop, table game revenue saw its takings plummet by around 23 percent, with Lawton blaming Las Vegas casinos for 90% of the year-on-year revenue decline noted across the whole state.

Other markets also posting falling revenues in August included downtown Las Vegas lower by 4.8% ($46.2m), and Boulder Highway casinos down 16.3% ($62.2m). In the meantime, casinos in Reno saw their revenues rise by 7.3% ($61.6m), while Lake Tahoe casinos reported a 4.7% revenue increase to $26.8 million compared to a year earlier.

Sports Books Wins $12.6M

Last August, the Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor fight helped Nevada’s sports books win an impressive $33.9 million from bettors, with that figure marking a staggering 1,651% year-on-year improvement. An incredible $65 million was wagered on the “The Money Fight” alone, with bookies keeping around $15 million of the amount when Mayweather scored a technical knockout over McGregor in the 10th round.

Needless to say, the state’s sports books were anticipating a sharp year-on-year hit to their numbers, and as expected their winnings ultimately sunk by 62.89% to $12.6 million, according to the results released on Thursday by the Nevada Gaming Control Board.

Attracting the most wagers was baseball, which maintained a 4.72% hold to net bookies $8.28 million in August, with that figure down by 3.78% from a year ago. Next highest was football whose 15% hold netted it winnings of $6.02 million (-9.02% yoy), while basketball, on the other hand, saw its hold -15.22% in negative territory, resulting in $901,000 in losses, down by 32% year-over-year. Similarly, the “other” category, which doesn’t include football, basketball and baseball revenues, also had a negative hold of -5.38 and sank to a $1.244 million loss (-106.28% yoy).

Visitor Numbers Mostly Flat

Las Vegas visitation numbers were fairly flat last month, and reported only a slight 0.2% fall to 3.56 million people compared to a year earlier. Likewise, citywide occupancy also fell to 87.7%, or 0.9% less than August 2017, although the average daily room rate actually increased by 2.1% to $115.67.

While convention attendance saw an impressive 18% jump to 646,500 people, the increase, however, was mostly due to a rescheduling this year of a number of conferences from July to August. For example, the Black Hat conference which took place in July 2017 was held this year in August and attracted 17,400 attendees.

Finally, McCarran International Airport received 4.31 million (+1.5%) passengers in August, with 33.23 million (+2.7%) now having arrived at the airport over the first eight months of the year. From that tally, international visitors totaled 344,601 (+6.9%) last month, with domestic flights accounting for the remaining 3.9 million (+0.8%) people.