April Gaming Revenue

What will the April revenue look like?

In six days they will announce the April Gaming Revenue. Baccarat has now finished 11 straight months of increases, sometimes dramatic increases (last June was very small). Baccarat has saved the strip while everything else is crashing. But in March there was a small jump in blackjack after almost 27 months, and the tiniest jump in slots (after 20 months of decline.

Do you think slots or blackjack will continue to return (or was March just a minor blip). Will baccarat make it for 12 straight months? Do you expect to see something dramatic? You can vote for more than one choice in the poll.

I'm not voting because I think that on a monthly basis, it's impossible to predict with any accuracy.

For example, looking at the middle chart, what the heck happened in February that caused it to not only shoot so much higher than last February, but shoot higher, period?

And then what happened in March that made it drop to only marginally higher than last March?

The top and bottom charts are also difficult to interpret because these are rolling 12 month totals, not individual months. Sure, they do a better job of showing the trend, but do nothing to help predict a single month.



On a side note, is the dealer in the first bacarat photo holding cash? I.E. Back in the day, did they sometimes pay winners cash?

Nowadays, in Vegas (and perhaps elsewhere), you can play with cash, but all payouts are in chips. Did they really pay in cash?

Quote: DJTeddyBear

I'm not voting because I think that on a monthly basis, it's impossible to predict with any accuracy. For example, looking at the middle chart, what the heck happened in February that caused it to not only shoot so much higher than last February, but shoot higher, period? And then what happened in March that made it drop to only marginally higher than last March? The top and bottom charts are also difficult to interpret because these are rolling 12 month totals, not individual months. Sure, they do a better job of showing the trend, but do nothing to help predict a single month.In a side note, is the dealer in the first bacarat photo holding cash? I.E. Back in the day, did they sometimes pay winners cash? Nowadays, in Vegas (and perhaps elsewhere), you can play with cash, but all payouts are in chips. Did they really pay in cash?

Very good points
(1) February was expected to be a good month with Chinese New Year's. The previous December had been a record breaking month with phenomenal baccarat play for the opening of the ARIA. The new tables at ARIA made an unprecedented $1 million per week per table. On top of high play in February, the tables also broke almost a decade old record on win percent which was 17% (normally it is about 11.5%). Between the table drop of almost $1.3 billion and the win percent, the strip earned a record $205 million which almost surpassed slot revenue for the month.

(2) I was badly burned in March. For the last 4 years baccarat had it's worse month in March. Just a few weeks before MGM-MIRAGE released a statement that said that every single casino on the strip had done worse in the first quarter compared to 2009. I reasoned that March would be a terrible month to explain the MGM losses. I put that in several e-mails to people to impress them with my ability to forecast. Instead of a loss, the strip actually made a 2.3% gain in March. Contrary to my expectations all of the huge losses at MGM-MIRAGE were in the non-gaming arena.

The format in the middle graph seemed to be the easiest way to look at four years of data at once. It tells you how each month does over a four year period, while at the same time allowing you to compare one month to other months. As I said earlier it didn't help for predicting March revenue.

(3) I probably won't predict a single month in any kind of a professional setting anymore. Format of the graph is not the main reason why it is difficult to predict any given month. It is just difficult to do.

The photo in the graph is a staged publicity photo showing the recently introduced game of baccarat to the Vegas strip.

I did find a quote from an MGM executive that said that cash was used for baccarat up until the 1970's.



I put the photos in the graphs partly because people felt that the graphs were misleading if the axis was not set to zero. When you set the minimum of the axis to zero, most of the graph area is blank. The photos make it slightly easier to look at by filling the large amount of empty space.

Blackjack started dropping as early as October 2007, nearly six months before slots and most other table games. Baccarat held out almost a year until September 2008.

In May of 2009 Baccarat had a good month. June was very slightly positive. Then July was another good month. In August the drop was over a billion dollars, yet nothing out of the order was happening. No fights or Chinese holidays or casino openings. A serious trend was developing.

September clearly put baccarat ahead of blackjack (which had never happened in decades). It was as much a statement about blackjack on the strip as it was about baccarat. October and November continued the streak

December 2009 set a new record, surpassing the December from 2 years earlier. There was a huge amount of play at the ARIA. January was solid, and February shattered all previous records in Baccarat for Chinese New Year's. March was uncharacteristically good. Baccarat players seem to avoid Vegas when it is at it's busiest.

Sands Marina Bay Singapore was only open for 4 days in April. But it is possible that all the high rollers did not come to Vegas in April anticipating the big opening in Singapore. There seems to be a precedent in ARIA. The huge baccarat numbers in the first two weeks in December at ARIA were followed by a horrific performance in the following 13 weeks where ARIA barely outperformed the Mirage.

It looks like the huge Chinese New Year's Las Vegas baccarat revenue in February was mostly at the Wynn and Sands. Now Wynn has a second property in Macau, and Sands can lure people to Singapore where they will play at a lower tax rate than in Macau. Before now the tax advantage was a strong reason to fly people to Vegas. Now Singapore has the newest and most amazing casino in the world, and you can get there in a few hours from major Asian cities.

Well it looks like nothing dramatic is the winer again on the strip. Total revenue dropped by less than 1%, but for the first time in addition to baccarat blackjack rose by 7.2% showing signs that other tables have at the very least bottomed out.

Slots are still falling (another 5.2%) indicating that the gaming bottom may not have been reached.

The rest of the county is still doing terrible, indicating that without the baccarat boost (10.6% on the strip) you are still in trouble.

Well it looks like nothing dramatic is the winer again on the strip. Total revenue dropped by less than 1%, but for the first time in addition to baccarat blackjack rose by 7.2% showing signs that other tables have at the very least bottomed out.

Slots are still falling (another 5.2%) indicating that the gaming bottom may not have been reached.

The rest of the county is still doing terrible, indicating that without the baccarat boost (10.6% on the strip) you are still in trouble.