My latest Las Vegas Business Press column is out, in which I dissect the June Nevada numbers:
The June results are in, and whatever the national economic picture, one thing is certain: Nevada gaming remains moribund. The figures released by the Gaming Control Board aren’t much cause for optimism, though things look a little better for Southern Nevada than for the north.
via Las Vegas Business Press :: David G. Schwartz : Latest data provide little optimism for gaming.
Basically, even without the incredibly low bacc hold on the Strip, it wasn’t a good month for the state, as slot handle continues to fall and table handle is mostly kept afloat by high levels of bacc play, play which happens in maybe a dozen casinos. But even if the bacc hold percentage had been more in the house’s favor, it still probably would have been a flat month.
Also, an interesting article in the LV Sun about the decreasing number of slots in Nevada, something I’ve written about. I’ve got one question: if it’s just a matter of having more games on each slot, why has the statewide win per slot only inched up slightly ($108.76 vs. $110.04) since 2004? The total win is declining in addition to the total number of slots, so each slot is doing about the same about of “work” it was six years ago, multiple games or not. Sure, the counter-argument is that revenues would have declined more without the game menus, but still, there hasn’t been a real increase in per-machine revenue generation yet.
The numbers may have provided little ground for ecstasy but they do provide sufficient ground for optimism.
Lets look first at the number of visitors. Without an influx of visitors, some of whom bring money of which some is lost, there is little hope of seeing good numbers. So simply remembering that despite all the talk about consumer confidence and unemployment, there are still people treking to Vegas is the important first step.
The next step is to look at the Baccarat figure and recall that yes indeed its only a few casinos and the handle was good but the hold was unusually low. Fine. That may not be good news but its certainly not bad news.
What we have is “no great joy” but a situation wherein the industry has held on for at least one more spin of the wheel. The casinos are still open, the customers are still arriving despite unpleasant statistics in the Washington press, … we await that next spin with bated breath but renewed confidence. The lights are still on and if they did not particularly brighten this month, they didn’t dim either.
Slot machines?
I’ve never been able to figure them out or figure out the people who play them.
There are limiting factors. Number of machines? It seems people don’t always like to have all the machines in use. Arriving gamblers like to have a choice and see more than one available machine.
More bonus rounds, more fancy graphics, more recent “themes”, … perhaps the player’s limit is being reached?