GGRAsia – Las Vegas Strip gaming revenue up 5 pct in November

Las Vegas Strip gaming revenue up 5 pct in November

Dec 31, 2015 Newsdesk Latest News, Top of the deck, World

Casino gaming revenue on the Las Vegas Strip stood at US$535.6 million in November, up by 5.4 percent year-on-year, show data disclosed on Wednesday by the Nevada Gaming Control Board.

The Las Vegas Strip, in Clark County in the state of Nevada, is the main gaming hub in the United States.

For the first 11 months of 2015, gaming revenue – officially classified as ‘gaming win’ – for the Las Vegas Strip was down 2.8 percent to US$6.3 billion, the data indicate.

Despite the ongoing slump in Macau’s gaming revenue, that city still retained a comfortable lead in November over the Las Vegas Strip regarding bragging rights to the title of world’s number one casino destination by revenue.

Macau’s casino gross gaming revenue (GGR) for November fell by 32.3 percent year-on-year to approximately MOP16.43 billion (US$2.06 billion), according to official data. Despite that decline, Macau’s gaming market was almost four times the size in GGR terms than that of the Las Vegas Strip market.

“Headline revenues [in the Las Vegas Strip] were in line with our expectations of low- to mid-single [digit] growth, impacted by: difficult baccarat comparison from last year…; tough operating calendar, with one less Saturday versus the same period last year; offset by timing of collections benefiting slot win and strong event calendar this year,” commented analyst Cameron McKnight, from Wells Fargo Securities LLC.

He added: “Mass-market volumes, which is the best indicator of overall gaming revenue trends, were flat, slightly below the year to date average of up 1 percent”.

The growth in gaming revenue in the Las Vegas Strip was driven by higher domestic visitor volume, Union Gaming Research LLC said in a note. “The trend of improving domestic trends in Las Vegas is encouraging, however, sometimes overlooked, as the international baccarat business continues to remain volatile,” wrote analysts Christopher Jones and John DeCree.

November baccarat volumes in the Las Vegas Strip were down 28.3 percent year on year while revenues were down 14.1 percent.

Overall November gaming win in the state of Nevada was US$944 million, up 7.7 percent compared with November 2014.