Nevada's Declining Revenue

Gaming: Washoe casinos lose $44.5 million in 2010-11

Washoe County’s biggest casinos combined for a third straight year of net losses in the 12-month period that ended last June 30, the state reported Friday.

In its annual Gaming Abstract, the Gaming Control Board said 30 casinos in Washoe, each with annual gross gaming revenues of $1 million or more, lost a total of $44.5 million in fiscal year 2011.


Statewide, net losses among 256 qualifying casinos swelled to $4 billion from a $3.4 billion loss a year earlier, reflecting the tourism industry’s struggle in a years-long economic downturn.


“This has been one gruesome recession for Nevada and Nevada gaming,” said Ken Adams, a Reno gaming analyst. “This (abstract) proves it.”

Washoe casinos’ results take into account total revenue of $1.42 billion from gaming, hotel rooms, restaurants and bars, and attractions.


Washoe’s net loss, what remained after expenses but before federal income taxes, grew 62 percent from a $27.5 million loss on $1.49 billion in revenue a year earlier. That followed a loss of $47.4 million in fiscal ‘09.


Richard Wells, president of Wells Gaming Research in Reno, acknowledged the expanding losses in Washoe County. But he said another factor in the equation, cash flow before taxes and depreciation, was positive — although it fell 16 percent from fiscal 2010.


“It’s down, it’s just not down 62 percent,” Wells said. “It’s a better measure of the overall bottom line.”


Parallels to the abstract’s findings can be found in gross gaming revenues, the second-biggest source of tax income for the state, as reported monthly by the Gaming Control Board.


In Washoe County in fiscal 2011, monthly gross revenues rose year over year just once, by 4.2 percent, and fell by as much as 19.6 percent.


Michael Lawton, Gaming Control Board senior research analyst, said the gross gaming revenue component of the annual abstract showed a fourth straight decline and seventh in the past 10 years for Washoe County.


He cited a drop in the number of the county’s casinos with $1 million or more in gross gaming revenue from a peak of 47 in 1995 to 30 as of June 2011.

“That’s a huge loss of capacity. Washoe’s total revenues are at 1993 levels and gaming revenues at levels prior to 1990,” he said.

Elsewhere in Northern Nevada, the abstract showed casinos in the Carson City/Carson Valley area mustered a net profit of $533,355 in fiscal ‘11 while properties on Lake Tahoe’s south shore lost $24.7 million.