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Vegas Casinos Feeling the Burn

The impact of the struggling American economy is being felt on all planes of the financial world. With Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac foundering, the real estate market in shambles, gas prices having settled at sky-high rates, and the very recent Wall Street disaster, people simply aren’t having much money to spare. Understandably, the land and online slot machine and casino industry has been hard-hit by the cumulative effect of Americans’ financial problems. The gambling industry obviously depends on people having money to burn.

Nevada’s Gaming Control Board reported this month that slot machine revenue was down significantly in Las Vegas. The land casinos located in the gambling capital of America has been struggling with maintaining visitor volume. Accordingly, fewer people have been playing the slots. Overall, slot machine income accounts for some two-thirds of all gambling revenue in Nevada. It seems that the one-armed bandits have been sitting lonely, with fewer people willing to part with their coins to chance their luck.

July was a bad month for the slot games on a national level. Compared with the same monthly period one year ago, slot bets across America were down a whopping one-point-one billion dollars. In Vegas alone, slot operators were coming up about half a billion dollars short. That’s a twelve percent decrease, and the worst dip of the seven consecutive months that slot gambling has been on a downturn. June saw only a ten percent loss. Baccarat and Blackjack games have seen a bit of an increase this summer, but not enough to counteract the slot losses.

Back to September 2008 Archive.