After years of recession, things may be finally looking up for casinos in Nevada. While Macau has overtaken the Las Vegas Strip as the main centre of gambling in the world, an improvement in the situation for casinos in Nevada is being looked on as a first sign that the land based gambling industry may be heading out of recession.
Last November revenue from gambling in Nevada as a whole increased by almost 12 per cent when compared to revenue from 2012. Casino revenue on the Las Vegas Strip also rose to just over 22 percent which is enough to give hope that income will increase from now on as there was some decrease in October 2013.
Nevada is one of only three states so far to have legalised online casino gambling but the report released by the Nevada Gaming control Board didn’t distinguish the online poker revenue from land based casino income.
A Gaming Control Board report published at the beginning of 2013 showed that 2012 was the fourth year in a row that Nevada’s main land based casinos made losses but that the 2012 losses were only about a quarter of those suffered in the state’s casinos in the previous year.Gaming revenue in Nevada increased to almost 875 million dollars in November 2013 and this allowed the state to take in 50 million dollars in taxes on this amount.
The tax increase was up 9 per cent on 2012. When the total income from gambling in the whole state is taken into account, it increased by just over 3 per cent from July to November in 2013 compared to the revenue from a year earlier.There were significant increases in the amounts bet on baccarat and blackjack while other casino table games such as craps has a lesser increase. Income from slot machines was down.
While the actual amount of money that players gambled in Nevada’s casinos in 2013 are not yet known, it is believed that the figure could be higher than the almost 11 billion dollars gambled in 2012. All of which may point to the beginning of a recovery for the state’s casinos.
