After eight solid months of rising income, including a record February, Las Vegas’ casino revenues fell significantly in March, according to the latest data released from the Nevada Gaming Control Board.
The declines are year-on-year and month-to-month.
Overall, Nevada gambling revenues fell 1.65% compared to March 2023, coming in at $1.29 billion. Revenues were also down approximately 3.7% on the $1.342 billion record February set last month.
Downtown Las Vegas saw the biggest fall, coming in at 12.85% less revenues than March of last year. Closely behind them was the Boulder Strip, south of the Las Vegas Strip, which saw income drop by 9.28%.
In fact, the only area of Clark County to show any growth in March was Laughlin. The smaller, riverside casino strip is about 90 miles south of Las Vegas, on the border between Nevada and Arizona.
However, the Silver State gambling business did keep up its 37-month consecutive streak of $1 billion-plus revenues.
Slots and Sports Betting Down
Even the giant casino resorts of the Las Vegas Strip couldn’t escape the slight downturn in March. Revenues fell 1.2% across the board compared to March 2023. Slots win was down 5% to $401 million, although table win grew 2.5% year-on-year to $415 billion.
Sports betting also suffered a tough month. The University of Connecticut Huskies championship victory in the NCAA Division 1 Men’s Basketball tournament was no good for the ‘books, as the heavy favorites brushed aside the competition.
We reported on Dave Portnoy’s cool $2.7 million win on the Huskies at the time. Now the data shows Nevada sports bettors also took advantage of surprisingly decent odds on the media favorites, as sports betting win fell 32% to $29 million. That represents just a 2.8% win on the total $1.03 billion handle.
Q1 Still Booming Overall
Despite the fall in March, the full data for Q1 2024 is now in for Las Vegas’ gambling operators, and it’s good reading.
Over the first three months of 2024, gross gaming revenue hit $3.9 billion. That’s up 2.35% on the first quarter of 2023.
A strong January and a record February because of the Super Bowl and the Chinese New Year set a high standard for the rest of the year.
Visitor numbers also remained high at Sin City’s Harry Reid International Airport in March. It served more than five million passengers over the month. That’s 2% higher than March of last year.
David is an online casino expert who specializes in online slots and boasts over 10 years experience writing about iGaming. He has written for a wide range of notable publications, including eSports Insider and WordPlay Magazine.
David graduated Derby University with a BA Degree in English Literature and Creative Writing.
