Nevada casino win drops 3.2 percent in January

By David McGrath Schwartz

Published Wednesday, March 10, 2010 | 9:04 a.m.

Updated Wednesday, March 10, 2010 | 10:42 a.m.

Gaming revenues dropped 3.2 percent in January compared to the same month a year ago, a figure that was better than expected. Nevada casinos reported a gaming win of $883 million in January, with casinos on the Las Vegas Strip down 3 percent.

But that could be good news.

January 2009 had both Chinese New Year and Super Bowl weekend, both big gambling events. Those events this year fell in Febuary. Because of that the state's Gaming Control Board had expected a double-digit decrease in January, said Frank Streshley, chief of the Gaming Control Board’s tax and license division.

"This is well above expectations," he said. "We had expected January to be extremely soft."

So far in the first eight months of the fiscal year, gaming collections are down 1.6 percent compared to the previous year. That's good news for the state's budget because the state's Economic Forum, which sets revenue projections for state government, forecasted that gaming revenues would be down 2.5 percent.

In Clark County, the gaming win was down 2.21 percent. Laughlin and Mesquite had the biggest decreases, of 14 percent and 10 percent respectively.

Downtown had a decrease of 2.1 percent and the Boulder Strip had an increase of 13.6 percent. South Lake Tahoe had a decrease of 9.77 percent.