Thursday May 12, 2005

Saddenz

A recent article in the May 12, 2005 Tahoe Daily Tribune made me fear the worse about the long term fate of anything other then slot machines in casinos. The title of the article is "Nevada casinos win record $1 billion in March".

The win was the amount left in Nevada casino coffers after gamblers wagered a record $13.4 billion during March, including $13.3 billion on slots and the rest on table games.

The article didn't appear on their website when I looked and contains some claims that are not consistent with the above quote.

The $1.03 billion statewide win during March included $719.6 million from slot machines and $301 million from table games. Poker accounted for the balance.

Looking at a little more credible source, the Las Vegas Review Journal, we find the equivalent article.

Slot machine win statewide of $719.6 million on $11.3 billion wagered was an all-time record, Streshley said, adding that March is traditionally a strong month for slot machine play.

Still a pretty sick number. Its pretty hard for me to imagine how its worth 11.3 billion to sit in front of a machine and pull a handle with the hope you get a good random number the next time¹. Some part of the 11.3 billion includes video poker play which I can vaguely understand.

I use to wonder why casinos spent so little money promoting new pit games. With the poker craze going on wouldn't it be interesting to hook some more of that money by the house? Well, the answer is probably that the cost of gaining that extra income doesn't make it viable.

¹ Not to be harsh, but that takes less thought then it took when the editor managed not to notice that the numbers in the article didn't make sense. ( May 12 2005, 01:55:02 PM PDT ) Permalink Comments [0]