This week’s casino news takes us on a tour of the United States. We’ll make stops in Nevada, New York and Hawaii to get you up to speed on the latest headlines from each state.
Nevada Casino Revenue Slowly Recovers While Sportsbooks Thrive
The monthly revenue reports are trickling out of Nevada and it looks like November was a fantastic time for the sportsbooks. While the casinos are slowly getting back to business (casinos saw a 17.75 year-over-year drop), sportsbooks did incredibly well.
In October, Nevada sportsbooks were able to bring in a record $659.9 million from sports betting. While they didn’t break the record October numbers in the month of November, they did reel in $606.9 million.
Flipping back to the casinos, while the 17.75% drop was bad, it was better than the number in other months. It actually represents an increase compared to October when the casinos saw a 19.5 percent drop.
Sadly, the Las Vegas Strip was hurt the most by the recent drop in revenue, only reeling in $349.8 million from their strip casinos which represents a 32 percent drop. Downtown Las Vegas was able to see a one percent increase in revenue throughout November.
New York Legislators Push For Legal Sports Betting Through Lottery
There might be a light at the end of the tunnel for sports bettors in New York. The State has announced that they plan to legalize online and mobile sports betting in the state of New York. As the state maintains its battle against declining revenue, Gov. Andrew Cuomo now has a tough decision to make on the topic of mobile sports betting. Democratic Assemblyman Angelo Santabarbara has backed the idea of online and mobile sports betting in the state and hopes for everyone to do the same.
The revenue that New York is currently bringing in from their casinos hasn’t been great and that’s not surprising given the pandemic and the lockdowns. What’s interesting to note about the sports betting is that the current plan is to run it through the lotteries rather than the casinos. Hopefully they change their minds as running it through the lottery has not worked well in other places.
Hawaii Casino Plans Keep Moving Forward
Hawaii is known for it’s beaches, laid back lifestyle, surfing…and casinos?
It looks like casino gaming could be coming to the islands after the plans were able to clear the first vote. The Hawaiian Homes Commission voted 5-4 in favor of the casino. The casino is planned to be built in Kapolei, which is west of Honolulu. One of the ways they were able to push this through is because all tax revenue that is brought in from this casino is set up to support Native Hawaiian programs.
After the Commission approved the bill, it now moves onto the Legislature in the hopes that it gets approved there too. This would be the first casino placed in Hawaii as they are one of the two states that don’t allow any type of gambling, with Utah being the other one.