Tag Archives: Nevada

Good July might be great news in the LVBP

September 22, 2011 4:02 pm

My column in this week’s Las Vegas Business Press takes a deeper look at July’s Nevada gaming revenue numbers. The more I thought about them, the more I thought that a good month might not be such bad news:

On Sept. 12, the Nevada Gaming Control Board released its July gaming revenue report. In both May and June, large increases in baccarat win on the Strip powered the state to double-digit-percentage revenue increases. July didn’t have that kind of dramatic story, but that doesn’t make it a bad month for Nevada’s gaming industry. That July was a only a good month for Nevada gaming is, in fact, great news for its future.

via Las Vegas Business Press :: David G. Schwartz : July’s good numbers are great news for gaming.

It’s part of the bigger theme for the past few weeks, which, I’m finding, is “lowered expectations.”

The real test will be August–I’m very curious to see how the market turbulence of early August impacted gaming numbers here. Historically there’s not a very strong correlation between the market and gaming revenues, but I think that the bigger uncertainty might have kept a few dollars in pockets, so to speak. We’ll see in a few weeks.

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Smoking ban rollback thoughts in LVBP

June 28, 2011 8:05 am

After talking about the street “performers” on the Strip, I figured I should discuss something totally noncontroversial in this week’s Las Vegas Business Press. So I settled on an article on the recent rollback of the gaming tavern smoking ban:

Back in November 2006, a majority of voters approved the Nevada Indoor Clean Air Act, which banned smoking in restaurants, child care facilities, stores and many other public places while exempting casino floors and bars that don’t serve hot food. Recently, Gov. Brian Sandoval signed Assembly Bill 571, which overturned key portions of that act and will allow smokers to light up again in taverns with food service.

via Las Vegas Business Press :: David G. Schwartz : Smoking ban’s rollback won’t save LV economy.

Since I don’t own a tavern and generally speaking don’t patronize them, I’m not too fired up about this issue. It does, however, shed some light on the byzantine legislative process here in Nevada.

If I were looking to start or move a business here, I might be concerned about how capricious a lot of these legislative changes seem. It appears that the majority of the tavern owners want to allow smoking, so I’m sure they’re happy they’ve got it, but I feel bad for any tavern owners who just invested a lot of money in renovating facilities so they could offer food and smoking at their bar. It seems like the regulatory requirements surrounding gaming are a constantly-moving target around here.

On one hand, I acknowledge that regulations will change to meet changing circumstances. On the other, if you really want to encourage investment, you’ve got to create some stability.

If the economy was still firing on all cylinders this wouldn’t be an issue, and frankly I don’t think it’s going to do much to move the needle in the end, either. There’s just way less money to go around in the local economy, smoking or not.

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Gaming Regulations Evolving in Global Gaming Business

June 1, 2011 8:13 am

I’ve got a pretty lengthy piece of the differing evolution of gaming regulations and transparency in gaming in Nevada, Macau, and Singapore in the latest Global Gaming Business Magazine:

Today, gaming is a truly global industry. Casino gaming, which was once a small-scale business confined to a limited number of jurisdictions, has blossomed into a multibillion-dollar enterprise with numerous competing markets. This not only means that gamblers get their pick of where they want to play; it also means that states, nations and special administrative regions compete with each other by offering regulatory regimes that best suit the growth of casinos.

Nevada, whose current regulatory regime is the longest-lived of the major gaming markets, may have some historical lessons for jurisdictions on the rise, particularly when it comes to the role of transparency in promoting the public—and investor—trust in the gaming industry.

via Gaming Regulations: Evolution and Transparency | Global Gaming Business Magazine.

Can you tell how eager I am for Singapore to start releasing monthly, or at least quarterly, revenue data?

That was a fun piece to write because it made me think about how Nevada, Macau, and Singapore are similar and different. It wouldn’t make sense to impose Nevada’s regulatory system top-down on other jurisdictions, but at 80 years it’s got the longest history of modern regulatory regimes (though Macau has had legal commercial gambling since the 1850s), so there are definitely going to be some lessons there for everyone.

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Patriotic argument for legal ‘net poker in the LVBP

May 31, 2011 1:28 pm

I found myself on a roll during the Focus Roundtable on online poker I participated in a while back, and decided to flesh out one of my ideas into a piece for the Las Vegas Business Press:

Surely it’s not just patriotism that tells me Americans would take more chips from their overseas counterparts than they lost. After all, we invented the game on the bayous of Louisiana, nursed it to maturity in small-town back rooms and wide-open saloons throughout the 19th century. America may not be the world’s leading manufacturer. We may not even be the world’s dominant economy for very long. But if there’s one thing we’re still good at, collectively, it is playing poker.

With so much concern over manufacturing and service jobs leaving America, wouldn’t turning loose the nation’s expert card players on the world be one way of restoring a positive balance of trade, so to speak?

via Las Vegas Business Press :: David G. Schwartz : Legalize Net poker if not for logic, for patriotism.

I’d love to get some feedback from poker players about this–I don’t think I’m mistaken about the income-earning potential for American poker players. I’ll concede that there are a lot of very talented international players out there, but come on–if Americans aren’t confident in their ability to win at poker, we’ve really lost our swagger.

As you’ll see, it’s a half-joking addendum to many of the very sensible arguments for legal online poker that have, thus far, fallen on deaf ears.

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Nevada’s destiny and online poker

May 3, 2011 8:00 pm

If you’re not completely sick of opinion pieces about online poker, here’s my two cents, from the Las Vegas Business Press:

The recent Black Friday indictments in which federal prosecutors charged three of the world’s biggest online poker providers with fraud and violating the Unlawful Internet Gaming Enforcement Act have rocked the poker world. In addition to the immediate questions the indictments raise about where the now-former American players of Ultimate Bet, Poker Stars, and Full Tilt will play, they suggest that the time has come, at last, for Nevada to lay its cards on the table and get serious about online gambling.

Online gaming will come; Nevada should lead it

I’d be really interested in hearing what other people thing about this: to me, Nevada-based companies should really be taking a more vigorous public role in the discussion of online poker. It’s certainly an issue that every Nevadan should be interested in.

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Thoughts on 2010 in Las Vegas Business Press

February 22, 2011 9:44 am

This week in the Las Vegas Business Press, I take a look back at a year that raises more questions than it answered:

From the start of last year, Nevadans had no illusions. The recession showed no concrete signs of letting up, and within the gaming industry hope, particularly about the newly opened CityCenter, was mingled with bigger anxieties about the dire local and problematic national economy. A look back at 2010′s gaming revenue picture shows that, while the worst didn’t happen, the “baccarat-based recovery” raises some serious questions about the future.

via Las Vegas Business Press :: David G. Schwartz : Breaking even does not equal economic revival.

Hopefully we can tell a little bit about where we’re going by knowing where we’ve been.

Today’s a busy day. I’ve got a special surprise in my class today: it’s being filmed for C-SPAN’s Lectures in History series. I don’t know when it will air, but I’ll keep you all posted. The lecture is about Las Vegas casinos in the 1940s, which includes the birth of the Strip and the story of the infamous Flamingo…as well as some neat historical stuff about the origins of Nellis AFB and Basic Magnesium.

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December NV gaming revenue analysis

February 10, 2011 12:28 pm

The Gaming Control Board released the December 2010 Gaming Revenue Report today, and I’ve gotten my historical comparison/analysis up. Here’s the executive summary, but you should really click through to see all of the numbers:

As in November, December saw a decline from the previous year’s results, but there were bright spots. Statewide and in most large markets, slot handle was up, meaning that gamblers put more money in slot machines—and won more. Buoyed by the Strip, table win increased statewide, while revenue fell. In general, if slot players respond positively to lower holds by gambling, the future may hold better results.

Statewide, total revenues fell by 2.38% for the month, with a modest (4.47%) gain in table win offsetting a 10.56 drop in table win. As noted above, slot handle inched (+1.06%) up, which is encouraging. The decline in slot hold was found across most denominations, and may be due to casinos responding to customer preferences for lower‐hold machines.

Las Vegas Strip revenues fell by only 0.30%, with a major (10.55%) drop in slot win, due to a substantially lower (‐12.65%) slot hold percentage. Baccarat revenue was just about steady; its last impressive gain was in October, and it is possible that we will not be seeing any more large increases in either baccarat handle or win in the near future. High rollers may not be providing the lift to the state’s gaming industry that they did through much of 2010.

In Downtown Las Vegas, total revenues declined by 4.44%, with slots falling 10.46% despite a slightly higher handle. Table revenues increased, despite a falling handle, because of a higher average hold.

On the Boulder Strip, total revenues fell by a whopping 29.63%, with dramatically lower (‐33.55%)slot hold responsible. Despite the lower hold, total handle fell, and an impressive boost in the amount played (+53.50%) and won (+19.80%) at the tables did not make up for the increase in slot win.

Washoe County revenues declined slightly (‐0.71%), with slot win trending up (+2.75%) on slightly higher hold and a marginally higher handle. Up north, table revenues dipped by 10.76%, at odds with the pattern in Clark County.
Nevada Gaming Statistics: December Comparison (pdf)

I pretty much said everything I needed to say right there, except my little insight about the craps win on the Strip, which superficially looks impressive (up 168%) until you go back and look at the December 2009 total, which was abnormally low due to an extremely low (6.59%) hold percentage. So it’s really a return to normal for craps, not an actual spike in play.

You can see the same thing to a lesser extent when you look at slots on the Strip. The hold percentage came back to normal in December 2010 (more or less) after an extremely high (6.48%) hold in December 2009.

Stuff like that demonstrates why it’s important to look for the bigger patterns, and not just the year-on-year increases. Any two data points can give you some whacky “trends,” but with three or more you’re on solid(er) ground.

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2011 Super Bowl Breakdown

February 8, 2011 9:17 am

The Nevada Gaming Control Board has released the unaudited figures for this year’s Super Bowl, and in spite of early reports that the books took a beating, they actually came out slightly ahead. Here’s a quote from the press release:

THE GAMING CONTROL BOARD RELEASED FIGURES TODAY SHOWING THAT $87.5 MILLION WAS WAGERED IN NEVADA’S 183 SPORTS BOOKS ON THIS YEAR’S SUPER BOWL.

GAMING CONTROL BOARD CHAIRMAN MARK LIPPARELLI SAID, “UNAUDITED FIGURES SHOW A SPORTS BOOK WIN OF $724,176 WAS RECORDED ON WAGERS TOTALING $87,491,098. THIS RESULTED IN A HOLD PERCENTAGE OF 0.83%.”

The release also has a table indicated the results for the past ten Super Bowls:
superbowlbets

The low hold, as you can see, is a bit of an anomaly. But even if the books had lost money, the casinos would have made money over the weekend, thanks to more action in the casino, even if you discount the bump from the Chinese New Year.

I wonder what role in-running bets had on keeping the win up–with more betting during the game, there were more decisions, which theoretically should get a hold percentage closer to 5.45% over time.

The real story, I think, is that the handle is trending up again. That’s a sign that people are gambling more money, which in the end will be good for Nevada gaming.

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Sandoval’s message to gaming in the Las Vegas Business Press

February 8, 2011 6:50 am

My latest column in the Las Vegas Business Press is now available. In it, I consider Governor Sandoval’s recent call for modernization in Nevada’s gaming regulations:

In his State of the State address, Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval briefly noted the necessity of updating the state’s gaming regulations to reflect the new realities of 21st century gambling. It’s a good message to share and it highlights the work the industry and its regulators have done to keep moving forward.

Sandoval highlighted the need for “a flexible environment for the technological resources that are the underpinning of modern gaming devices,” suggesting that the recent forays into mobile gambling — courtesy of dedicated devices developed by Cantor Gaming and applications that run on smart phones, one of which recently gained board approval — will continue. With commerce and information-sharing migrating from brick-and-mortar to Internet to mobile, it makes sense that more people are going to want to gamble using these technologies.

via Las Vegas Business Press :: David G. Schwartz : As gambling shifts, state must be ready to adjust.

The importance of modernization was really driven home last Friday, when I went to the opening of Cantor Gaming’s new sportsbook at the Tropicana. Cantor is moving aggressively into mobile sports gaming. In addition to their dedicated devices, which you can already get at the M, Venetian/Palazzo, Hard Rock, Tropicana, and Cosmopolitan, Cantor is developing apps that run on smart phones and tablets.

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2010 Nevada Gaming Abstract released

January 31, 2011 8:30 am

The Gaming Control Board has announced the release of the 2010 Nevada Gaming Abstract. As of 8AM 1/31, the report isn’t up on the GCB’s site, but here’s the press release:

The State Gaming Control Board has released its “NEVADA GAMING ABSTRACT – 2010.” The ABSTRACT is a report of combined financial information regarding Nevada gaming licensees grossing $1 million or more in gaming revenue during the fiscal year ended June 30, 2010 (FY 2010).

During FY 2010, there were 256 casinos in Nevada, which grossed $1 million or more in gaming revenue. Together, these casinos generated net loss of $3,432,514,103 from total revenues of $20,853,560,968. These results compare favorably to FY09 when the net loss was $6,778,293,613 and total revenues were $22,011,364,912. “Total revenue” is the money spent by patrons on gaming, rooms, food, beverage, and other attractions. “Net income/loss” is the money retained by casinos after expenses have been paid but prior to deducting federal income taxes and prior to accounting for extraordinary expenses. Gaming revenue accounted for $9,906,558,446, or 47.5% of total revenue. These 256 casinos paid $777,648,073 in gaming taxes and fees, equating to 7.8% of their gaming revenue.

On a county-by-county basis, Clark County had 148 casinos grossing $1 million or more in gaming revenue during FY 2010, which generated a combined net loss of $3,362,651,595 from total revenues of $18,244,846,700. Washoe County had 31 casinos, which reported a combined net loss of $27,513,712 from total revenues of $1,492,637,757. Elko County had 18 casinos with $37,023,257 in combined net income. South Shore Lake Tahoe in Douglas County with 5 licensees reported a net loss of $90,381,128. Carson Valley Area with 13 casinos generated a net loss of $435,875. The balance of the state had 41 casinos earning $11,444,950 in combined net income.
NV2010fy
In FY 2010, 68 casinos owned by public companies accounted for 76.2% of the total gaming revenue generated statewide during the fiscal year.

In addition to providing combined balance sheets and income statements, the GAMING ABSTRACT includes data concerning average number of employees, rate of room occupancy, revenue earned per room per day, gaming revenue earned per square foot of gaming floor space, and various ratios. Data is also combined into totals representative of casinos statewide with rooms and casinos statewide owned by publicly held corporations.

Nevada Gaming Control Board

Just a reminder–this info is for the fiscal year, which ran July 2009 to June 2010. I’m expecting the calendar year numbers to look better–at least for some reporting areas.

I’m going to be incorporating the new data into the Nevada jurisdictional summaries and several reports over the next few weeks.

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