Nevada Casinos Hit 12 Straight Months Of Billion-Dollar Gaming Wins

Nevada casinos surprised onlookers with another billion-dollar month of gaming wins in February.

Casinos have been winning more than a billion dollars from players for months. While there isn’t a sign of this slowing down, that was always possible with the shortest month of the year.

Well, the number of days in February didn’t slow business down for Nevada casinos. The shortest month of the year held strong.

February was the 12th consecutive month Nevada casinos won more than a billion dollars from players.

The February revenue report from the Nevada Gaming Control Board (NGCB) shows that casinos won $1.113 billion from gambling in February. This was an increase of 44.1% from last February.

Nevada’s gaming win in February was helped by a record-breaking Super Bowl early in the month. The NGCB reported that a record $179.8 million was gambled on the big game, where the Los Angeles Rams defeated the Cincinnati Bengals.

Despite hosting the NFL Pro Bowl and NHL All-Star Game and the big Super Bowl revenue, Nevada sportsbooks won $30.9 million from $781 million in wagers in February. This translated into an extremely low hold of 3.96%.

Huge Gains On The Vegas Strip

Tourists are flocking to Las Vegas in numbers not seen in quite a while. February saw a massive increase in traffic at Harry Reid International Airport in February compared to last year.

There were 3,343,562 passengers at the airport this February. This is more than double the 1,614,130 tourists who flew to Las Vegas in February 2021.

The huge increase in visitor traffic from last year helped provide casinos with guests. The increase in visitation resulted in massive gains for the properties on the Vegas Strip.

The $599 million gaming win for Vegas Strip casinos in February was a whopping 71.9% higher than the same period last year.

The return of gamblers to the Vegas Strip over the past fiscal year (July 1, 2021, through Feb. 28, 2022) has been remarkable. Gaming win for the entire state is up 56%. That’s not bad but Vegas Strip casinos are even more impressive.

The casinos in the most touristy part of Las Vegas have enjoyed a 98.3% increase over the previous fiscal year.

During quarterly earnings calls, various casino executives shared thoughts that February might be a launching point for successful months ahead. Hotel room capacity estimates were projected to increase monthly into the summer.

If history repeats itself, the spike in gas prices shouldn’t slow down visitation to Las Vegas all that much. Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority Vice President of Research Kevin Bagger told the Nevada Independent that “Over the years, there have been spikes in gas prices that historically haven’t had significant impacts on travel demand.”

The revenue reports and airport traffic in March will show if there’s an impact from higher fuel prices around the world.