BRAD HORN/Nevada Appeal Cars travel along Carson Street near the Nugget Casino and the Horseshoe Club. One of the larger drops in gaming revenues was in the Carson Valley area, which includes valley portions of Douglas County as well as the Capital.
Nevada casinos finished the calendar year with their 10th straight month of more than $1 billion in winnings.
Statewide win for December was $1.15 billion, bringing total casino win for the calendar year to $13.43 billion, an all-time record for gaming win, beating the Calendar 2007 record of $12.8 billion. That is a 70 percent increase over calendar 2020.
In fact, 11 of the 18 reporting areas in the state set all-time records. Among those that failed to set a record are Washoe County, Reno, North Shore, and South Shore.
Gaming Control Board analyst Mike Lawton said every market statewide reported an increase over 2020 when casinos were shut down a significant part of the year because of the pandemic.
Total win was also up in Calendar 2019 before the pandemic hit by 11.6 percent.
The Carson Valley Area was one of the reporting areas that set an all-time record with $134.1 million in total win. That is up 49.6 percent over 2020 and up 20.4 percent from 2019.
While slot win jumped just shy of 50 percent, table game increased 42 percent. But games win was down 24.3 percent compared to calendar 2019.
South Shore casinos at Stateline reported total win of $250 million, up 37.2 percent from 2021. Compared to calendar 2019, total win was up 10.8 percent. That is the highest total win for the area since 2009 and Lawton said had it not been for closures forced by the Caldor fire, win could have been even stronger.
North Shore casinos recorded their highest win totals since 2010 at $27.1 million. That is 45.1 percent above 2020. Slot win was up 52.7 percent and games win up 8 percent over 2020.
Reno reported total win of 728.4 million, a 50.1 percent increase from last year. Washoe County’s total win was $1.01 billion, up 50.3 percent.
In Churchill County, total win for the year was up 50 percent to $132,589 compared to Calendar 2020. That is driven by slot play which accounts for the vast majority of Churchill win, $128,995.
Games play comes from just eight locations but that too was up some 46 percent from the previous year.
Lawton said the gaming numbers improved rapidly after the advent of vaccines that eliminated capacity restrictions on the gaming floor. He said it also helped that consumers had substantial cash to spend in the casinos because of the pandemic relief approved by the President and Congress, coupled with pent-up demand from casino closures.
