At $12.06 billion, Nevada gambling win in 2019 was third-best ever

CARSON CITY, Nev. — For the seventh time in the 2019 calendar year, Nevada's total gambling win topped $1 billion in December, finishing the year with a 5.79 percent increase from December 2018 to $1.08 billion.

In addition, total win for all of 2019 came in at more than $12 billion — by a hair, at $12.06B — for the first time since before the recession hit at the end of 2007.

That is the third highest total win for a year in state history, behind 2006 and 2007, according to updated figures released by the Nevada Gaming Control Board.

When looking at just December, Gaming Control Board Analyst Mike Lawton said the positive win totals came despite another weak performance by Baccarat, which dipped 28.9 percent for the month. Without Baccarat, Game and Table win would have increased 9.4 percent in December.

The driver for the December increase, Lawton said, was slot win of $700 million, up 10.1 percent or $64.2 million.

For all of 2019, slot win totaled $71.9 billion, a 2.9 percent increase. Slot win has now increased in nine of the last 10 years and for the past five consecutive years. Slots now account for 65.9 percent of total statewide win.

Casino officials say that with Nevada's continuing economic recovery, the 2019 numbers show that “Joe Six Pack,” the average small bettor, has returned to the casinos.

Meanwhile, although sports betting is still a relatively small percentage of total gambling win, just over 3 percent, Lawton said it's growing dramatically.

For the year, the sports pool generated $329.1 million, a 9.5 percent increase, on $5.3 billion in total wagers. Both the win and volume are all time records for the sports books. This was the 10th straight year of record setting numbers by the sports books.

In Reno, gambling win for December came in at $42.4 million, a 2.77 percent decrease from the previous year. For 2019 as a whole, Reno's $626.8 million in win was down 1.6 percent from 2018.

Washoe County was down 2 percent in December to $71.9 million, ending four consecutive months of increases. For the year, Washoe recorded $857 million in gambling win, down 1 percent from 2018.

Carson Valley, which includes valley portions of Douglas County as well as Carson City, finished the year up just a hair under a percent with $111.33 million in total win. But December's decrease of almost 2 percent to $9.3 million finished the year on a sour note.