Nevada Casinos Post Rare Loss

KNXT reported that for only the second time in history Nevada casinos lost money on an annual basis. The first year that happened was in 2003, while the economy was recovering from the dot-com bust and 9/11. In that year, the 260 largest Nevada casinos lost a total of $33.5 million.

This year?

This year, the 260 largest Nevada casinos lost $6.8 billion, 202 times as much money as they lost in 2003. Huge loss. $4 billion of that loss was by casinos on the Las Vegas Strip. President Obama telling people to stay away from Las Vegas wasn't helping things any. Now you know why the mayor of Las Vegas was so peeved.

The Record-Courier reported additional data concerning the Lake Tahoe and Stateline area, which lost $19.3 million. They define large casino as an operation that earn revenues of over $1 million, so the smaller operations aren't counted in this metric.

Who says that gambling is recession-proof? Not any more. Not that this was completely unforeseen. Nevada gaming revenue had been declining for a while, but to actually incur a loss of this magnitude has to shake up Nevada. You can read previous posts on this topic here and here.