Baccarat slowdown impacts Vegas February revenues

The latest numbers from the Nevada regulator show that at $916 million gaming revenues were back in negative territory in February, declining 1 percent compared to the same period last year, and down nearly 4 percent from the preceding month figure.

Las Vegas Strip revenues were down 4.4 percent at $531 million due to a 23 percent slide in baccarat, adversely impacting overall performance; taking out the baccarat decline revenues could have been up 2.7 percent, analysts said.

Baccarat accounted for about 14 percent of the state’s gambling win for the month, and it’s been down for six of the past seven months, the NGCB’s senior research analyst, Michael Lawton said.

In general, the Nevada Gaming Control Board statistics released Tuesday show that the amount casinos won from gamblers rose everywhere except the Strip.

Lawton explained that not even Chinese New Year or the Super Bowl could boost the numbers, and that there were marginally more visitors in February at 3.16 million.

Giving an opinion on whether the crackdown on corruption by the Chinese government could trigger an surge of Chinese high rollers to Nevada, Lawton said that no such influx had so far been apparent since the clampdown had become noticeable.

“If it was going to help Las Vegas, that hasn’t happened,” he told the Associated Press news agency. “These customers are being cautious.”

On the bright side, Lawton said that slot action across the state was encouragingly up, with that on the Strip up 4.52 percent to $245 million.

Sports betting revenue plunged 54.2 percent to $14 million due at least in part to poor hold on bets on the Super Bowl..

Tax revenues collected by the state in February declined 1.64 percent to just under $58 million.