While attending and speaking at a business gathering in Las Vegas this week, one might get the impression with the glitz, glamour and gaming that the gambling business has escaped the economy’s overall woes.
But as the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported on February 12, that is not the case. Gambling has taken a hit along with the rest of the economy. Consider the following from the report:
• Gaming revenues dropped by 9.7 percent in Nevada in 2008. That was the sharpest decline in state history. It also was only the third time in the last 53 years that annual gaming revenues fell.
• During the fourth quarter of 2008, the drop in revenues from the same time in 2007 was 19 percent.
• On the Las Vegas strip, gaming revenues dropped by 10.6 percent in 2008, which was the largest since a 2.1-percent falloff in 2001.
• The decline in the economy, and therefore the drop off in gaming revenues, also meant that the state experienced a decline in gaming tax revenues. December taxes, for example, fell by 22.7 percent compared to same time last year.
With the outlook for the rest of 2009 being rather grim, it would not be surprising to see a second straight years of a decline in gaming revenues.
Raymond J. Keating
Chief Economist
Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council
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