Nevada gambling revenues for February released

The Nevada regulator has released revenue numbers for February 2017 which, at $945.5 million are down 4.5 percent on the $989.9 million achieved in corresponding period in 2016.

However, observers have pointed out that due to the vagaries of the calendar, there was an extra February day last year.

Michael Lawton, a senior research analyst with the Tax and License Division of the Nevada Gaming Control Board, said part of the monthly decline was because February 2016 had an extra day.

“February is really a difficult comparison,” he said. “Last year the state was up 8.1 percent (in February) and the Strip was up 7.3 percent. First of all, last year was a leap year and there was an extra day. That accounted for a little over 3 percent of the difference.

“Also, Chinese New Year (a big holiday for Asian gamblers) was entirely in February in 2016. In 2017, it occurred mostly in January but with some spillover to February. So definitely, the entire impact of that holiday was in February last year.”

Las Vegas Strip gaming win was down five percent year-over-year.

The February 2017 figure was by no means the best…or the worst. The low point was the $830.9 million February in 2009, during the Great Recession.

In January of this year, Nevada casinos won just over $1 billion from gamblers, which was an increase of more than 12 percent year-over-year, and perhaps gives a more optimistic and truer picture.

Over the full year 2016, Nevada casinos won $11.26 billion from gamblers, a 1.3 percent improvement over the previous year.

“If you look at the longer trend, say eight months of data, it’s all positive,” Lawton said. “Overall, things are trending in the right direction.”

Based on February casino revenue, Nevada collected $51,986,240 in fees in March.