Card Player – Nevada casinos had a very strong calendar year in terms of gaming revenue, or the amount won off of gamblers. According to a 2013 revenue report released Friday, Silver State casinos raked in $11.14 billion — a 2.6-percent increase over 2012. A total of 339 properties statewide generated the 11-figure sum.
The performance was the fourth year in a row gaming revenues climbed statewide. Despite the success on the gaming floor, the casino industry recently reported a net loss of $1.35 billion for fiscal year 2013. That was up from fiscal year 2012. Even though it’s just a 4.2 mile piece of road, the Las Vegas Strip accounted for around $6.5 billion of the state’s overall gaming revenue from January to December of last year.
That figure marked nearly a five-percent gain from 2012. The growth in the state’s casino revenue reportedly is due to the increasing popularity of baccarat, which accounted for an all-time high of $1.6 billion in 2013. Slots are still the top moneymaker, taking in more than 60 percent of the entire pie.
Nevada, the nation’s top gaming market, debuted real-money online poker in April, when one site (Ultimate Poker) kicked off games. A second (WSOP) joined in during the fall. There’s no officially word on what those revenues have looked like so far, as the state is waiting for a third operator to begin business before disclosing any such data. Regardless, since it was just online poker, only from two operators and just about half the year, online poker revenues were surely negligible when comprising the $11.14 billion.
However, that doesn’t mean it wasn’t felt when looking at card game revenues specifically. Live and online poker in Nevada brought in $123,891,000 during 2013, up from $123,253,000 in 2012. According to research from the University of Nevada Las Vegas, 2013’s poker number represents the first increase year-over-year since 2006 to 2007. The record of $167,975,000 was set in 2007. The good news is that poker is on the upswing.
This all despite 774 live poker tables in Nevada, the lowest number since 2005. While online poker has been worth pursuing for two Nevada casino firms, the state is eyeing partnerships to one day increase liquidity for the games. That could come this year in the form of a deal with New Jersey, which also has legal web gambling.
Nevada may be tops in the United States for gaming revenue, but it’s still far behind the ever-growing Macau, which won a record $45.2 billion from gamblers in 2013. Pennsylvania ($3.1 billion) and New Jersey ($2.9 billion) trail Nevada domestically. Nevada’s all-time record for gaming win was $12.8 billion, set in 2007.
