It appears while the great gambling halls of the Silver State tried to keep Lady Luck in a headlock, she slipped free, kicked the Strip in the shins, and skipped off toward the high desert hills of Carson City—where fortunes may be modest, but at least they’re headed in the right direction.
While the big boys down on Las Vegas Boulevard lit cigars with December’s record winnings and talked Super Bowls and F1 races like they were prophets of prosperity, March came around and said–“Not so fast.” Statewide, gaming revenue tumbled 1.11 percent like a drunk tourist off a barstool, and the Strip—poor thing—lost nearly five percent. You could hear the sobbing of baccarat tables from Primm to Mesquite.
But in Carson City, where casinos wear less flash but more grit, revenue crept up 2.61 percent like a cat who knows where the cream’s hidden. Eleven and a half million dollars ain’t a mountain of gold, but it sure beats tumbling into the red. Gardnerville, Minden, and the untroubled corners of Douglas County, excluding South Shore Lake Tahoe, which slipped a whopping 7.16 percent, all joined the parade of modest success.
They’re whooping and hollering in Reno with a near 11 percent increase. Sparks saw a gentle 1.94 percent lift, and Washoe County grew nearly seven percent. It’s enough to make someone wonder if the future of Nevada gaming lies not in pyramids and volcanoes but in the old-fashioned gaming halls of real Nevadans.
Meanwhile, downtown Las Vegas had a banner month, up more than 11 percent. The Boulder Strip held its own, too. But make no mistake–with visitor numbers down nearly eight percent, baccarat losses down over 34 percent, and room counts disappearing faster than poker chips in a backroom game, the Big Show is starting to look like a tired magician—out of tricks and long on stories.
You see, the high-rolling hayride of December can only carry a state so far. The Tropicana is now rubble, The Mirage is snoozing, and the tourists are staying home or headed to Oklahoma. When a $1.27 billion gaming win gets shrugged off as “meh,” we’ve reached a point where winning ain’t enough—it must be historic, or it might as well be a loss.
So I ask you, Nevada–do you feel lucky, punk? Because the dice are still rolling, the baccarat shoes are still dealing, and the slots never sleep—but the bloom might be off the rose, and she ain’t coming back without a fight.
The Old Blog in the Desert 