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How Baccarat distorts
Vegas revenue figures
It sounds like the Strip had a horrible August,
but that’s only because it was so good last year
There are, perhaps, lies, statistics, and gaming statistics.
Consider, for example, that gaming revenue at Las Vegas Strip casinos
was down nearly nine per cent year-on-year in August, after three months
of steady increases. Disastrous news?
Not really: this was entirely due to a year-on-year decline in the
popularity of Baccarat after a hugely successful August 2010 for the game;
with that excluded from the calculations, the month would have shown a
4.7 per cent increase.
“Excluding highly volatile Baccarat play, we believe August results
provide further evidence of stabilisation in Las Vegas Strip gaming trends,”
one analyst was reported as saying.
Altogether, Strip casino revenues were just under $500m in August. For
the first eight months of the year, Strip revenues rose 5.2 per cent,
markedly outperforming Nevada as a whole, which recorded an increase of
just 2.9 per cent. Reno locations, in bitter contrast, fell by 11 per cent.
In Pennsylvania, meanwhile, regulators have for the first time been able
to make a year-on-year comparison of revenue from the recently-introduced
table games.
For the nine casinos which had tables at the beginning of August 2010,
total revenue was up by around $14m in August of this year, thanks largely
to the addition of new tables.
However, new tables do not invariably generate money. While Sands
Casino Resort Bethlehem, for example, more than doubled table revenue
by adding extra tables, Mohegan Sun at Pocono Downs and Presque Isle
Downs & Casino saw it decrease even as the number of player seats grew.
In August 2011 there were around 900 tables in use in Pennsylvania,
more than three times as many as in August 2010.
Irish ready for casinos,
Kyrgyzstan bans them
Two smallish countries, two sets of regulators,
and two completely different gaming policies
They may be about the same size in population terms, but it is difficult to
think of much else that links verdant Ireland with mountainous, landlocked
Kyrgyzstan...except the fact that law-makers in both countries have
recently dramatically rethought their positions on gambling, and headed in
opposite directions.
Work has now started on drafting new legislation to modernise Ireland’s
gaming laws, covering land-based gambling, betting shops, bingo, lotteries,
and e-gaming.
For the industry, there will be losses as well as gains. True casinos are
expected to be allowed for the first time, possibly classified into two
grades as either large resort venues or smaller local venues. But an
official report earlier this year proposed excluding gaming machines from
sites such as pubs, as well as from bookmakers’ offices: good news for
the casinos-to-be, if not for the slot makers.
And to provide a statistical starting point for the new regime, the Irish
Responsible Gambling Board is preparing to undertake the first study of
the prevalence of gambling, and problem gambling, in the country.
The Kyrgyz parliament, meanwhile, has banned casinos and slot
machines, effective 1 January 2012. There are currently believed to be
around 20 casinos and 3000 locations with slots in the country.
Critics of the move charge that it will simply drive gaming underground,
although some suggest that it may be paving the way for the
establishment of a state monopoly.
“The very same MPs who gamble in the casinos will provide ‘protection
services’ [for illegal operations], and all the money that now goes to the
state treasury will flow to their pockets,” predicted Myrza Niyazov, a
member of the Gambling Business Association. Kyrgyzstan will lose around
$9m in annual tax revenue.
The move was initiated by opposition leader Bakytbek Dzhetigenov, but
secured almost unanimous support from MPs, with President Roza
Otunbayeva declaring that
casinos had a “detrimental effect on the entire society” and that the
Kyrgyz people should stand firm against “casino barons”.
Alternative suggestions, including the confinement of gambling to a
limited zone much as Russia has done, did not find favour.
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