November’s gaming win was up 10.8 percent in the Carson Valley area.
That’s an $847,000 increase to $8.67 million and the sixth consecutive monthly increase for the area that includes valley portions of Douglas County as well as the capital.
Gaming Control Board analyst Mike Lawton said the driver was slot win which increased 11.1 percent, accounting for $830,000 of the total increase. Slot play volume was up 4.5 percent and hold increased over November 2016 as well.
For the calendar year, the Carson Valley area is up 3.4 percent.
Statewide, total win was actually down 2.3 percent to just more than $909 million. But Lawton said that’s only the third decrease this calendar year and, overall, gaming win is up 3 percent for the year.
Game and Table win was down 13.2 percent or $42.9 million and the driver was primarily Baccarat which fell 23.5 percent to $64.9 million. Without Baccarat, he said win would’ve actually been up a percent in November.
Another contributor to the decrease was “21” which was down 12.2 percent or $11.7 million and, finally, Sports Pools won just $9.8 million in November. That’s a 48.8 percent, $9.4 million decrease compared to a year ago. The main reason why the sports pool win was so low was because casinos took more than an $11 million hit when the Houston Astros beat the Los Angeles Dodgers 5-1 in game 7 of the World Series on Nov. 1.
Lawton said slot win was the bright spot, up 3.6 percent to $626.7 million, a gain of $21.5 million. Slot win has now recorded nine consecutive increases in the volume of play.
In Washoe County, total win was $63.3 million, up 2 percent or $1.2 million. Washoe is up 1.9 percent for the calendar year.
North Shore casinos at Lake Tahoe reported $1.9 million in total win, an 18.9 percent increase. But Lawton said it was an easy comparison since November 2016 was down 11 percent at North Shore. Slot play accounted for $223,000 of that $295,000 gain. For the calendar year, Crystal Bay casinos are now up 1.1 percent.
At the south end of the lake, the story was different. There, total win was down 2.9 percent to $15.5 million. Stateline casinos had a tough comparison since a year ago, win was up 12.6 percent. The driver behind the overall decrease was Game and Table win that fell 8.2 percent or $344,000 in November. The culprit was “21” which suffered a 36.3 percent decrease. Betting volume was down 9.5 percent and the hold percentage fell from 17.8 percent a year ago to 12.5 percent.
But for the calendar year, South Shore is up 2.7 percent.
Finally, Churchill County casinos had a banner month, reporting a 15.1 percent overall increase in November.
Total win there was $1.85 million.
Table games helped out with a 7.82 percent increase but, at $54,000, they represented only a tiny piece of win in Churchill County.
Slot play generated $1,796,000 for the 10 non-restricted gaming licensees there. For the year, Churchill casinos are up just under 2 percent.