Nevada Poker Rooms Raked $117.8 Million In 2016Revenue Nearly Unchanged Year-Over-Year |
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It wasn’t a winning year for Nevada poker rooms, but the market did hold steady.
Nevada casinos raked $117,753,000 from poker cash games in 2016, according to figures released Tuesday from state regulators. The amount was two-tenths of a percentage point less than what was raked in 2015.
There were 73 poker rooms with a combined 661 tables as of mid-December.
That’s the fewest number of card rooms since the 58 that were open in 2003, according to the University of Nevada Las Vegas Center for Gaming Research. It’s also the fewest live tables since the 484 in 2004. The last time Nevada card rooms raked less from poker was in 2004 when rake was $98.9 million.
As most people know, Nevada witnessed a poker boom in the mid-2000s. Poker revenue reached a high of $168 million in 2007, but then the market contracted in eight of the next nine years. The only year since the height of the poker boom in which revenue increased over the previous year was in 2013 (half a percentage point gain).
Poker revenue includes money from online poker, but the Silver State doesn’t release a breakdown between live and online because there’s basically just one operator in the market. Nevada kicked off its real-money online poker industry in 2013.
Under Nevada law, poker tournaments are considered an amenity and thus are not included in gross gaming revenue. Poker revenue is just money raked from the cash games.
The Las Vegas Strip area had about $78 million of the $117.8 million raked last year. Strip area poker revenue was up nearly a percentage point year-over-year. There were 21 poker rooms with a combined 320 tables on or around the state’s main casino corridor.
Here’s a look at Nevada poker revenue by month in 2016:
January: $9.5 million (2.85 percent decrease)
February: $8.98 million (5.44 percent increase)
March: $9.68 million (0.01 percent decrease)
April: $8.57 million (0.86 percent increase)
May: $8.88 million (13.92 percent decrease)
June: $16.14 million (1.88 percent increase)
July: $12.33 million (7.63 percent increase)
August: $8.24 million (3.23 percent decrease)
September: $8.44 million (1.47 percent increase)
October: $8.71 million (0.23 percent decrease)
November: $8.92 million (0.65 percent decrease)
December: $9.37 million (0.09 percent increase)
Overall Nevada casino revenue last year was $11.26 billion, an increase of about a percent compared to 2015.
It wasn’t a great year overall for table games in Nevada. Revenue from three-card poker, baccarat, mini-baccarat and pai gow were all down as well last year.
Blackjack, the top table game in the state, did grow by about four percent to $1.14 billion last year. However, the reason why the overall gambling market grew was because of slot machines. Revenue from the machines was up 2.3 percent to $7.16 billion.
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