The numbers are in for 2014 and the state of Nevada’s poker rooms, demonstrating a slight drop compared to 2013. At the same time, reports on the Nevada online poker industry have been discontinued due to the regulation of the industry.
2014 wasn’t a bad year for the casinos and card rooms in Nevada, bringing in $119,904,000 over the span of the calendar year. According to the Nevada Gaming Control Board, however, that total was a slight drop from 2013, when the poker industry brought in $123,891,000 (approximately a three percent drop). 2014 also marked the first year since the mid-2000s where poker revenues were under $120 million.
Not only did the revenues fall in 2014, the number of poker rooms in Nevada also declined. 79 rooms contributed to the revenues in 2014, down from the 88 operations that were a part of the 2013 tabulations. The 79 rooms also marked the lowest number of poker rooms in Nevada since 2004, when there were also 79 rooms.
The poker revenues could have been even lower save for the addition of online poker to the Nevada mix. The formerly three rooms that made up the Nevada online poker industry – WSOP.com, Real Gaming and the now-defunct Ultimate Poker – added approximately $10 million to the overall poker revenues for the 2014 calendar year. Since the departure of Ultimate Poker in November 2014, however, industry insiders will not have any insight into the online poker scene for the near future.
When Ultimate Poker closed up shop in November – leaving only WSOP.com and Real Gaming in operation – the NGCB did not have to report internet poker revenues for the month of December. Per the regulations in the state of Nevada, there have to be three rooms in operation before online poker figures would be reported. Although there are two sites that are rumored to be readying for operation in Nevada – a Treasure Island site and the All American Poker Network – neither has come online as of yet, leaving the overall online poker revenues subject to conjecture.
Instead of releasing the figures for online poker in the state in November, the NGCB released a statement from the chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission, Tony Alamo, regarding the state of online poker in Nevada. “For online gaming to work, you need liquidity,” Alamo reported. “Liquidity means volume, lots of people playing. We do not have the population base to do it just within our state, or one or two smaller states, to make it viable.”
The numbers bear out Alamo’s statement. WSOP.com has a seven-day average of 140 players, according to PokerScout.com, while Real Gaming barely moves the needle. Although Nevada and Delaware have signed an interstate compact a year ago, no further movement on the sharing of players has taken place (Delaware’s online poker numbers also aren’t very impressive). The overall state of online poker in Nevada left Alamo “very pessimistic” on the future of online poker in the state.
In looking at the overall numbers, it is easy to see that poker isn’t a major driver in the Nevada casino industry. For 2014, overall gaming revenues in the state of Nevada were $11.02 billion, down once again from 2013’s overall revenues of $11.14 billion. Doing the math, poker only makes up approximately one-tenth of the overall “win” rate for casinos in the Nevada market.
Whether the revenue figures signify a downswing in the poker market in Nevada is debatable. It may just have been a market correction as the rooms that weren’t drawing in enough customers closed and their players filtered into other casinos around the state. It also might show that players are staying away from the tables – both live and online – and a problem may be developing. Either way, the revenue numbers bear watching for 2015 as to poker’s success in the Silver State.
