Tough times continue for New Jersey casinos

Gambling revenue in New Jersey continued to decline last month, falling 0.6 percent to $294.7 million, the state’s Division of Gaming Enforcement said Tuesday.
Table games win actually increased 2.7 percent to $89.8 million but slot machine win slipped 1.9 percent to $205 million.
Year to date, revenue is down 7.8 percent, the regulators revealed, adding that the casinos paid $20.5 million in taxes on gross revenues in September.
Associated Press opined that Atlantic City’s long casino slump may be nearing its end, describing the slower decline as “a heartening development in the nation’s second-largest gambling resort in the midst of a nearly five-year revenue skid.”
For the first nine months of the year, New Jersey casinos won $2.6 billion. That’s down 7.8 percent from the same period in 2010.
In stark contrast was a report from the Macau Daily News, which revealed that in the first nine days of October alone the gambling enclave’s land casinos generated MOP 10.8 billion (around US$1.35 billion) in revenues.
The massive burst of gambling is attributed to the Chinese national holiday week according to information compiled by Portuguese news agency Lusa.
Macau’s visitor arrivals during the Chinese national holiday week rose 13.27 percent to 775,968 from a year earlier, the city’s tourism office said in a statement.
According to gaming analysts, casino operators in Macau are set to see October revenues surge around 40 percent to a record MOP 26 billion (USD 3.24 billion).
Local gaming revenue reached MOP 194.4 billion in the first nine months of the year, 46 percent higher than a year earlier . Even though there are three months still to be accounted for, the accumulated total is already higher than in the whole of 2010, when it hit MOP 188.3 billion.
And in Las Vegas, gambling revenues again slipped in August by 8.7 percent, ending three months of gains. Betting declined to $496.9 million on the Strip, Nevada’s Gaming Control Board said Tuesday.
Revenue is up 5.2 percent for the first eight months of 2011 from a year earlier as the city stages a bumpy recovery from a record two-year drop in gambling and conventions.

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